There are some novelists who can get away with writing about sex - Philip Roth, Ian McEwan - but they are rare.

People who have had a stroke and are recovering from it love being read to... especially by someone who is a good reader - it does help them to get better.

People do sometimes ask me some really idiotic questions: 'Is your husband afraid of you putting arsenic in his food?' I replied that I have never written a book about poison, ever.

I don't make any notes, but I do know where to find things. Suppose I need to know where Wexford first talked about his love of the countryside or where he quotes Larkin or what was the beginning of his hatred of racism or where he first encountered domestic violence; I would be able to find it straight away.

I don't feel that I wanted to spend my whole writing life - which is my life - writing detective stories.

My favourite book - 'The Good Soldier' by Ford Madox Ford, which I have read about 20 times - is different from my favourite author, who is Iris Murdoch. I find her books exciting and unputdownable. Her characters are so carefully studied and in-depth; I love that.