I'm just an entertainer. In a way crime stories are boring. A crime's been committed and at the end you know it will be solved. So you've got to make the story interesting besides it just being a plot. And that's why character matters, why you've got to make the characters interesting.

Ever since I was in my teens I had plans at one point in my life to write a novel.

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.

Normally I start with a plot, and write a synopsis, and the ideas come from the construction.

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

I'm afraid I didn't really like Caracas in Venezuela. From what I saw it seemed so crime-ridden that you really have to be on your guard all the time.

I'm not a big crime reader, but I'm reading Michael Connelly's 'The Reversal.' I'm going back to his novels. I'm also reading Keith Richards' 'Life.' I'm always fascinated by the transition from the innocent late '60s and early '70s and the youth culture becoming an industry.