The really disturbing thing about Somalia is that in a country where there are few economic opportunities, pirates are perceived as glamorous and are held in awe by young boys who aspire to their lifestyle.

My family wasn't terribly affluent and looked upon money very carefully as something that had to be saved, not spent. My father built the ducting that took air into the copper mines and made about 6 d a yard in the Thirties, which was good money back then.

I wanted to be a great white hunter, a prospector for gold, or a slave trader. But then, when I was eight, my parents sent me to a boarding school in South Africa. It was the equivalent of a British public school with cold showers, beatings and rotten food. But what it also had was a library full of books.

All my characters have got a big slice of me in them. A big piece of me, because it's my dialogue and this is the way I think and talk.

I write my books in my head, and not in a specific study with a view. The view is from my inner eyes.

I grew up in Rhodesia on my father's ranch and every year he used to take us on safari in some remote area of the wilderness.

There's nothing so aphrodisiacal for a woman as money and success.