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Truly I never thought of myself as writing legal thrillers, and I still don't think I do. I write stories about women.

Thrillers have been traditionally very masculine books; the women characters often rather decorative.

When I first started writing 'Still Missing,' I didn't actually realize I was writing a thriller. I thought it was more women's fiction, but during the many years of rewrites, I kept taking out the boring parts, and then my agent informed me that I had written a thriller.

There are several authors who are also lawyers - and not only the ones who write legal thrillers. There are other attorneys who write romantic fiction, and I know of at least one who writes young adult books.

Since my romance novels had all been thrillers as well, it wasn't such a leap for me to move into the straight thriller genre. The most difficult part, I think, was being accepted as a thriller writer. Once you've written romance, unfortunately, critics will never stop calling you a 'former romance author.'

Anybody who sits down to write, and they think 'thriller,' maybe shouldn't be thinking that way. Maybe we should be thinking 'novel,' maybe 'thriller' way in the background, but that these are real people to whom things are happening. It just happens to be a hell of an exciting story.

My mother could never understand why I didn't write a thriller, which I've finally done.

The way to write a thriller is to ask a question at the beginning, and answer it at the end.

I don't like writing straight-up thrillers. I like writing about families hurled into crisis and danger - soccer moms and regular dads and husbands who might have to rescue their daughters or who are, say, hedge fund managers and have one foot on the sidelines watching their kids and the other in nefarious cover-ups and conspiracies.

I am, after all, a thriller writer. I routinely delve into the darkest chambers of the human heart. I've written about murder, kidnapping, depravity, horror, violence, and disfigurement.