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I think I had a particular moment when I was 15 years old. I read 'Crime and Punishment,' and that book just, I think, more than any other book made me want to be a writer, 'cause it was the first time that I hadn't just entered a book, but a book had entered me.

I write crime novels and thrillers - I'm a big fan of cops. You can never forget that they run towards what everyone else runs away from.

I started writing in my 20s. I just wanted to write, but I didn't have anything to write about, so in the beginning, I wrote entertainments - mainly murder mysteries.

When I'm writing, I don't read much crime at all - you don't want to get distracted by other people's plots.

I'm not a good crime writer. I'm not good with plots... so I have to do something else.

I'm snobby about books that aren't crime fiction: if I start reading a literary novel and there's no mystery emerging in the first few pages, I'm like, 'Gah, this obviously isn't a proper book. Why would I want to carry on reading it?'

I spent years only ever reading horror and then trying to write horror - and deep down, a horror writer is still what I'd love to be. But it wasn't until I started writing crime that things began to work for me.

Even though I got a late start, first publishing an essay when I was 50 years old, I've since written eight suspense novels.