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.

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

Perhaps it had nothing to do with sin and everything to do with sociopathy, that most incurable of human disorders because all so afflicted consider themselves blessed rather than cursed.

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

When I wrote The Onion Field, I realized that my first two novels were just practice.

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.

I enjoy doing the research of nonfiction; that gives me some pleasure, being a detective again.