Except for cases that clearly involve a homicidal maniac, the police like to believe murders are committed by those we know and love, and most of the time they're right - a chilling thought when you sit down to dinner with a family of five. All those potential killers passing their plates.

A is for Alibi, my first book, was published in 1982. As it happened the next couple of books took place in June and August of that year. Without meaning to I painted myself into a corner. The other issue was the aging process. I did not want my main character to age one year for every book so I slowed the whole process down. This way I could get through all 26 letters of the alphabet without making her 109 years old in 2015. I might end the series in either 1990 or on New Years Eve 1989.

Ghosts don't haunt us. That's not how it works. They're present among us because we won't let go of them.

It's been my observation, after years in the [insurance] business, that a certain percent of the population simply can't resist the urge to cheat.

You can't make anyone love you and you can't stop anyone from dying.

My notion of an elegant table is you don't leave the knife sticking out of the mayonnaise jar.

Happiness is seasonal, like anything else