A lot of novels use crime as a stepping stone to talk about greater issues. So I just think of myself as a writer.

You can take my heart, but I can't let you take my dog.

I'm afraid of the general things that everyone is afraid of: a bump in the night that could be a cat or Death dragging his sickle across the room; losing my health; becoming homeless, never meeting George Clooney.

Everybody had something horrible happen to them at one time or another in their life.

The plot is very important because writers have to play fair with their readers, but no one would care about the plot if the character work wasn't there. So, basically every book I work on starts with me thinking not just about the bad thing that's going to happen, but how that bad thing is going to ripple through the community, the family of the victim, and the lives of the investigators. I am keenly aware when I'm working that the crimes I am writing about have happened to real people. I take that very seriously.

I'm sold as a literary writer in Holland; I'm sold as crime fiction in England. I think of it as just literature.

A lot of novels use crime as a stepping stone to talk about greater issues. So I just think of myself as a writer.