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As a writer, you're making a pact with the reader; you're saying, 'Look, I know and you know that if this book was really a murder investigation, it would be a thousand pages long and would be very dull, and you would be very unhappy with the ending.'

It's a comedy thriller, brilliantly written and it's full of twists and turns at every page. When I was reading it I was desperate to get to the end to find out what happens, it really hooks you.

If the book is a mystery to its author as she's writing, inevitably it's going to be a mystery to the reader as he or she reads it.

Nothing bores me more than books where you read two pages and you know exactly how it's going to come out. I want twists and turns that surprise me, characters that have a difficult time and that I don't know if they're going to live or die.

With the novels, I try to write a few pages a day - it doesn't sound much, but it can be difficult if I'm not sure where the story is going.

Writers have to be careful not to confuse personal attention with the attention that's going towards the book.

I'm very troubled when editors oblige their film critics to read the novel before they see the film. Reading the book right before you see the film will almost certainly ruin the film for you.

The suspense of a novel is not only in the reader, but in the novelist, who is intensely curious about what will happen to the hero.

I enjoy a good cliffhanger. As a reader, I relish that nervous feeling you get when you're engrossed in a story, but in the back of your mind you're aware that there aren't that many pages left. How will it end? Everything can't be wrapped up! This can't end! Then it does, and your heart seems to stop.

I don't know how the editors are going to take it or how it may be received. But to some extent I'm hoping that with the next book, when people pick it up and read it, it will scare the pants off of them.