There was no protection, no quota system when it came to luck. It was like that moment in math when a child learns that the odds of heads or tails is always one-in-two, no matter how many times one has flipped the coin and gotten heads. Every flip, the odds are the same. Every day, you could be unlucky all over again.

I'm at the age most people are sending their kids off to college.

I adore the work of Stephen Sondheim. I like musicales in general. They make surprisingly great running tapes.

I think I'm part of a generation of crime writers all of whom woke up independently and recoiled with horror at the fact that we'd chosen this very conservative genre.

The past was worth remembering and knowing in its own right. It was not behind us, never truly behind us, but under us, holding us up, a foundation for all that was to come and everything that had ever been.

I begin each book with a challenge to myself.

Anyone can love a perfect place. Loving Baltimore takes some resilience.