Anna Katherine Green wrote about a female inquiry agent, and there were a scattering of female investigators in the 1970s, authored by men, who just didn't ring true. So I thought, 'Well, there's an opening here for something.'

You never imagine that the Green Bay Packers were going to be in something you wrote or singing 'Bootylicious.'

About 10 years ago, in an effort to gain a better grasp on McCone's world, I took up the hobby of building fully electrified scale models: first of the legal cooperative where she started out, and then of her own brown-shingled cottage, a pursuit that the more tactful of my friends label unusual, and that the more blunt refer to as obsessive.

I know that when he was in the opening ceremonies, he must have just been overcome.

I was never a good journalist, because I would make things up. A lot of people frowned on that, which is why I ended up in fiction.

The 1890s was a decade when life began to change in urban America. Modern conveniences that we now take for granted came into use; women's roles became less restrictive; and San Francisco, a port city with influences from all over the world, was a lively place in which to reside.