I was concerned about the link between crime and politics, and I figured out the only way I could do something about it was to get into politics.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I have way too shady a background to get into politics. I was a crazy kid - I was in bands, and I don't think I'd get very far before people started digging up stuff I didn't want them to see.
About 25 years ago, I started out as a reporter covering politics. And that sort of just evolved into organized crime, because organized crime and politics were the same thing in Boston.
We've got to stop focusing solely on the symptoms of crime, and start caring about the causes as well.
I really got to a point where I thought maybe I would want to be involved politically.
I don't know that I am fascinated with crime. I'm fascinated with people and their characters and their obsessions and what they do. And these things lead to crime, but I'm much more fascinated in their minds.
I read 'Crime and Punishment' years ago and don't recall the details of it, but I do retain a strong sense of the creeping paranoia and panic.
One of the things I learned is that you've got to deal with the underlying social problems if you want to have an impact on crime - that it's not a coincidence that you see the greatest amount of violent crime where you see the greatest amount of social dysfunction.
There is a very conservative element of crime writers that don't recognise what I do is crime fiction.
Anybody who doesn't know that politics is crime has got a few screws loose.
When you're a crime reporter, you see the nub of what life's about, and you don't have much patience for the falsity of politics.