You know when I told you the joke about how a friend will help you move, but a real friend will help you move a body? I was only kidding.

If he's like any other man I've ever met, it's not my smile he's going to be looking at.

What has bothered and angered radical Muslims is that I'm a non-Muslim writing anything at all about Islam. But this is fiction, and I don't think Islam is above criticism or fictionalization any more so than Judaism, Christianity, Mormonism or Hinduism is.

My #1 job as a thriller author is to give readers the best white-knuckle thrill ride I am capable of. I am first and foremost in the entertainment business. If that suspenseful ride is also terrifying because it hits really close to home, then I am once again doing what I am supposed to do as a thriller author.

Life is a sewer and we are all but swimmers within it. Smart people do the backstroke. (In other words you gotta have a giggle.)

One honorable young man can make all the difference...