When I was writing my first novel a friend told me I should apply for a grant from the government that was offered to support starving artists. I can't tell you how much this deeply offended me. I told her in very clear language that I thought it was ridiculous to think that other Americans ought to pay for me to chase my dream. Anybody who understands pride and self-determination gets this. So I bartended at night, I wrote during the day, and I paid for my own damn insurance. I didn't expect anybody else to pick it up for me.

I am a huge fan of Alan Furst. Furst is the best in the business--the most talented espionage novelist of our generation.

If you're not busy living, you're dying.

A good football team plays offense and defense. You have to be aggressive and disrupt.

Killing Lincoln is a must-read historical thriller. Bill O'Reilly recounts the dramatic events of the spring of 1865 with such exhilarating immediacy that you will feel like you are walking the streets of Washington DC on the night that John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln. This is a hugely entertaining, heart-stopping read.

I'm a bit of a Libertarian.

A major theme in all my books is that the CIA is not only the first line of defense but they should also be the first line of offense.