As a writer, you have to believe you're one of the best writers in the world. To sit down every day at the typewriter filled with self-doubt is not a good idea.

Doubt is faith's shadow.

I write something that I believe I've made up, and it's only when a friend later points it out to me that I realise I've been writing about myself again.

Everything you do leaves traces, doesn't it. The life you've lived is written all over you, for those who can read.

It was a sudden inspiration. But inspiration never came without a reason.

Ever since the '70s, Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo were the godfathers of Scandinavian crime. They broke the crime novel in Scandinavia from the kiosks and into the serious bookstores.

My father grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., with my grandparents. In Norwegian my name is pronounced 'Yoo' but my father used to call me 'Joe.'