I was a political journalist; I came to writing novels through an interest in politics and power.

A police state is a country run by criminals

I think it's very, very hard not to go slightly crazy if you're in the top in politics, especially if you're there for a long time.

You can't ever win the war on crime, or the war on terror. You can't repeal human nature.

If you go back, 'The Great Gatsby' would be a portrait of the rich and fortune made by business.

Egyptologists, skilled in piecing together the papyri of lost civilisations, suddenly discovered that the same talent could be applied to working out the pattern of German radio traffic.

Tape is the archiving champ and has been for decades. Reliable, less expensive than disks and available in large-scale robotic systems that store petabytes.