I think anyone who writes suspense fiction and says that King isn't an influence is either lying or being foolish.

You should be writing for the love of the story, and when it comes time to return to the manuscript, everything else belongs behind a closed door.

In terms of characters I wish I had created - just because I haven't dealt with anything like them - I'm really impressed by characters who can endure over time, whether that be a long series run like a Harry Bosch, or a character who endures over generations and continues to please readers: Sherlock Holmes.

'Envy the Night' was my first stand alone, the first book I'd written in the third person and I loved the feel of that, and it was different but it was also the same. 'So Cold the River,' I knew, was going to be really different, and that's why I thought about doing it as a novella under a pseudonym, because I didn't want to damage my career.

Band of Skulls is joining Cage the Elephant as my new musical caffeine.

You have only so many chances to tell stories. I didn't want to be forever wedded to one form of storytelling when there are so many out there.

I'd worked at a small town newspaper, and I was thinking of all the strange stories that I had seen float through the newsroom in my time there that were dismissed as kind of amusing curiosities. Somehow from that I got to this idea of an eccentric alcoholic who built a lighthouse in the woods.