I spend about eight months researching and outlining my book.

Readers are paramount. I live to write books for them.

People with children and people with their own business always pick up a ringing phone.

I've worked for law firms, I've worked for corporations, and for the past 20 years, I've been writing working for myself, and believe me it's a lot better. That's a big part of the James Bond panache, that you're responsible, 100 percent responsible, for the success or failure of your mission in life, whatever it is.

So I work hard to present the human side of my characters while not neglecting the plot.

It means working harder to do the research but I don't really mind - I don't think I have what it takes to chase criminals through back alleys and wade through blood at crime scenes.

In the shaded portions where the two spheres of different lives meet, certain fundamentals- moods, loves, fears, angers- can't be hidden. That's the contract.