No one I know of has ever had this experience-where you had to sit and wait and wait for a DNA test to come back just so you can write the last page of the book.

The Onion Field, that one got pretty close to me because I was a cop when it happened. I saw some of the indifference that my police department showed to the surviving officer.

I'm sure I took some licks at the system, and at trials and lawyers in general. I've seen enough of them for so many years both as a cop and a defendant in defamation cases.

Probably 95 percent of the things that are written never get on the screen.

The Onion Field made a real writer. And then I knew it was over, I couldn't be a cop anymore.

When I interview people accused of capital offenses, I never even ask if they did it. I would consider that unprofessional.

I write a thousand words a day. Nothing will stop me, I mean nothing, until the book is finished. I'm disciplined in spite of myself.