It means working harder to do the research but I don't really mind - I don't think I have what it takes to chase criminals through back alleys and wade through blood at crime scenes.

She believed not in divine salvation but in the proposition that we poor mortals are fully capable of saving ourselves, if conditions and inclinations are right, and the evidence of this potential is found in the smallest of gestures, like the uncertain resting of a large hand on a bony shoulder.

Certainly going back to Sherlock Holmes we have a tradition of forensic science featured in detective stories.

You think publishing is tough but the music world is ten times tougher.

To answer that I have to describe what I think is my responsibility as a thriller writer: To give my readers the most exciting roller coaster ride of a suspense story I can possibly think of.

I spend eight months outlining and researching the novel before I begin to write a single word of the prose.