Now, I - for several years while I was researching this book, I felt quite obsessed by thoughts about sentencing, punishment, how judges arrive at their decisions.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I am deeply impressed with the gravity and wisdom with which most federal judges approach the responsibility of sentencing. It is a difficult, soul-searching task at best.
I read 'Crime and Punishment' years ago and don't recall the details of it, but I do retain a strong sense of the creeping paranoia and panic.
I did know that the book would end with a mind-boggling trial, but I didn't know exactly how it would turn out. I like a little suspense when I am writing, too.
We crime novelists have a great pulpit. We write about justice and about correcting injustice.
I am the worst judge of my books.
When it comes to the point where you occasionally look forward to being in prison on the basis that you might be able to spend a day reading a book, the realization dawns that perhaps the situation has become a little more stressful than you would like.
We're seeing the fulfillment of the Book of Judges here in our own time - every man doing that which is right in his own eyes.
I really hate those books where the murderer turns out to be somebody you never heard of who pops up in the last chapter.
My books are never about the crimes. They are about how the characters react to the crimes.
The book that convinced me I wanted to be a writer was 'Crime and Punishment'. I put the thing down after reading it in a fever over two or three days... I said, 'If this is what a book can be, then that is what I want to do.'