The most sustained feat of imagination in mystery fiction today.

British crime stories tend to be very internal, psychological, claustrophobic, very limited in terms of geography.

I need a stimulating environment to write because my books are driven at 100 miles per hour at a time.

I wanted readers to be genuinely unsure as to whether she's telling the truth or lying. It meant making her partly sympathetic, and partly unsympathetic, which wasn't easy.

People who wear glasses, without them they always look unfocused, vulnerable. Out in the open. A layer removed.

This was like July 13th, 1943, the pivotal day of the Battle of the Kursk. We were like Alexander Vasilevsky, the Soviet general. If we attacked now, this minute, we had to keep on and on attacking until the enemy was run off his feet and the war was won. If we bogged down or paused for breath even for a second, we would be overrun again.

The key to thrillers is vicarious pleasure.