Don't go growing a conscience on me," I said. "I've been down that road. It doesn't lead you to anything good.

No Way Back is my kind of novel - a tough, taut thriller - Mofina knows the world he writes about.

I think there'd be huge losses if there weren't newspapers. I know everything's shifting to the Internet and some people would say, 'News is news, what you're talking about is a change of consumption, not the product that's out there.' But I think there is a change.

I'm a disciple of Raymond Chandler, who said in his essays that there's a quality of redemption in anything that can be called art.

I love movies. Movies have influenced me as a writer.

To write more from memory and to be more creative - I think - because I am still writing about Los Angeles but I can't walk out my door and immediately drive to places I am writing about. So I think it has been a very good change for me after 11 books to start writing this way.

Deep in my heart it still feels like I'm a journalist even though I haven't worked for a paper and carried a press pass for 14 years.