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I'm a strange kind of author - I like assignments. I wasn't clever enough to invent an iconic figure like Salander, but she's my kind of girl.

I'm a big fan of Elmore Leonard, and I've read Ian Rankin, Christopher Brookmyre and so on. But I'd never read a crime novel that made me feel emotional at the end.

You don't read many scripts, especially for crime dramas, that feature a strong woman as the central character.

Scandinavian crime fiction has become a great success all across the world and rightfully so. Sjowall and Wahloo ushered in a whole generation of Swedish crime writers, many of whom are now available in English.

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.

I like Beryl Bainbridge a great deal, and she is a writer who absolutely demands to be read a second, third, and fourth time. I admire her great courage in leaving so much unsaid and asking the reader to really engage her brain.

I know a lot of crime writers feel very underrated, like they're not taken seriously, and they want to be just thought of as writers rather than ghettoised as crime writers, but I love being thought of firmly as a crime writer.

I read all the Agatha Christies when I was younger and like Sherlock Holmes. Crime fiction has always fascinated me, but I'll read anything anyone gives me.