The Belgians tend to downplay the cultural divide issue, and the far-right issue, but there's a staggering degree of casual racism in Belgium, much worse than in the UK.

The short story feels like the most natural length for prose fiction, or certainly for the kind of ideas and situations I like to encounter.

What the short story needs above all is for one of the big publishers to get an equivalent series up and running and to support it and promote it.

Belgium is a country with a split personality.

I was particularly drawn to Berlin because of its literal, concrete division. Two halves making a whole, or two entities that were altered doubles of each other? Twins that had been separated and kept in neighbouring houses and raised according to different sets of rules as a social experiment? It was irresistible as a metaphor for division in the mind, for a split personality.

I always have lots of zany ideas for promotional stuff as publication nears.

I'm not trying to write cinematic novels, but I have been told several times that my style is cinematic.