I felt alienated by the experience and decided to stay away from corporate employment.

Slippery slope. I carry a spare shirt, pretty soon I'm carrying spare pants. Then I'd need a suitcase. Next thing I know, I've got a house and a car and a savings plan and I'm filling out all kinds of forms.

All of us write wish fulfillment.

Practically any Western has a homesteader in trouble, and a mysterious rider shows up off the range, solves the problem over two or three days, and then rides off into the sunset.

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.

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

The first day of the rest of my life.