I was once told by a very well-respected editor, "Category horror is about good vs. evil, that's all it is." And I thought, "That's why it's no good. That's why I find that stuff unreadable." One is looking for something that's a little more emotionally complex and nuanced.

You'll never get anything done if you walk around with an unchipped heart.

Instead, I was interested in what I guess I could call narrative indeterminacy, in questioning the apparent, taken-for-granted authority of any particular representation of the events in question.

I wish I could go back and re-write my first novel for the first time. Because I really didn't know what I was doing, and although it was published, it is, after all this time, kind of an embarrassment.

When, in the third book, we do learn the identity of the Blue Rose murderer, the information comes in a muted, nearly off-hand manner, and the man has died long before.

To feel our character, our personality, and our personal, hard-won history fade from being is to be exposed to whatever lies beneath these comforting, operational conveniences. What remains when the conscious and functioning self has been erased is mankind's fundamental condition – irrational, violent, guilt-wracked, despairing, and mad.

However, I think I managed to reach a new level with Koko, and I will always be grateful for the experience.