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Crime is a product of social excess.

Good writers know that crime is an entre into telling a greater story about character. Good crime writing holds up a mirror to the readers and reflects in a darker light the world in which they live.

Crime is interesting. It's huge and fascinating, and it's what my business, TV and film, is largely based on. But the realities are tragic, and in crime drama you rarely see the pain of bereavement or any consequences. It's reduced to a chess game.

I think that crime is a good vehicle for looking at society in general because the nature of the crime novel means that you draw on a wide group of social possibilities.

Poverty is the mother of crime.

When a crime is committed, only the victim and the victim's close circle experience the event as pain, terror, death. To people hearing or reading about it, crime is a metaphor, a symbol of the ancient battles fought every day: evil versus good, chaos versus order.

Crime is a very hard genre to feminise. If you have a female protagonist she is going to be looking after her mum when she gets older; she is going to be worried about her brother and sister; she will be making a living while bringing up kids.

Crime dramas will never go away as long as people turn to television for, among other things, reassurance and comfort.