I wrote my first real murder story as a journalist for the Daytona Beach News Journal in 1980. It was about a body found in the woods. Later, the murder was linked to a serial killer who was later caught and executed for his crimes.

Money. The ultimate motivation. The ultimate way of keeping score.

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.

In the long run, all wrongs are righted, every minus is equalized with a plus, the columns are totaled and the totals are found correct. But that's in the long run. We must live in the short run and matters are often unjust there. The compensating for us of the universe makes all the accounts come out even, but they grind down the good as well as the wicked in the process.

Momentum was momentum, whether you found it in music or on the street or in the beat of your own heart.

I'm always looking at ways of shaking up the writing experience because I think it helps.

It's only a wonderful world if you can make it that way. There are no street signs pointing to Paradise Road.