I've been able to write at least one book a year for 20 years, and I don't think I would've had that kind of drive if I hadn't come out of the journalism business.

The best crime novels are not about how a detective works on a case; they are about how a case works on a detective.

The writing ethic was influenced - when you have to write every day, there's no such thing as writer's block.

The characters I write about are very internal.

I feel I'm functioning at some level as a journalist because even though I write fiction, I'm trying to get the world accurate.

Well, did he do it?" She always asked the irrelevant question. It didn't matter in terms of the strategy of the case whether the defendant "did it" or not. What mattered was the evidence against him -- the proof -- and if and how it could be neutralized. My job was to bury the proof, to color the proof a shade of gray. Gray was the color of reasonable doubt.

You know what I did after I wrote my first novel? I shut up and wrote twenty-three more.