I'm not really into gourmet food; I'm the kind of guy who just stops by a place that looks good rather than heading for the restaurant of the moment.

I'd been a thriller reader all my life.

She's a reflection of my fascination with the diversity of America she's totally normal in New York, but a freak in Texas. There are dozens of such clashes in America.

My mother still calls me Jim and that is about it. Everyone else calls me Lee. My wife calls me whatever.

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.

I'm a rich man. To have everything you need is the definition of affluence.

Everything you could want - action, suspense, character and setting, all floating on the easy lyricism of a fine writer at the top of his game.