The thing is that quite a few of my books have ended up as they are because of conversations I've had over the years with forensic scientists.

I did want to be Joni Mitchell for quite a long time.

One of the reasons we all still read Jane Austen is because her books are about universal things which still matter today - love, money, family. They haven't gone out of fashion, so it's not throwing the baby out with the bathwater to rework her in a contemporary style.

I said to Ruth Rendell, 'When you've written as many books as you have, it's easier.' She said, 'No dear, it gets harder'.

It was a bit unimaginable when I began that I'd ever get to 25 books. But it was also unimaginable how much crime-writing would have changed.

Growing up in Fife, you were aware that there were these creatures called lesbians, but it was in the realms of complete freakishness. And I didn't feel like a freak.