An average working day begins at 8 or 9 am, includes an hour for lunch, and ends at 5 or 6 pm.

I instantly chucked my academic ambitions and began writing fiction full-time.

I had a connoisseur's... appreciation of fear.

I generally wade in blind and trust to fate and instinct to see me through.

I believe I encountered death, which was a bit too much for a seven-year-old.

However, I think I managed to reach a new level with Koko, and I will always be grateful for the experience.

Fear and I were old buddies, despite my best efforts to the contrary.

As soon as I started writing Julia, by which I mean while writing its first sentence, I felt a sudden, reassuring charge of excitement. I knew it was going to work.

Dick Dart emerged from the ether during a flight from New York with my wife and children to Puerto Rico.

These days, there are a great many books about childhood trauma and its effects, but at the time all the experts agreed that one should forget about it as quickly as possible and pick up where you left off.

If I planned everything out in advance, I'd expire of boredom.

When, in the third book, we do learn the identity of the Blue Rose murderer, the information comes in a muted, nearly off-hand manner, and the man has died long before.

There were a lot of adventure books for boys, historical novels by Kenneth Roberts, and whatever mystery novels the alarmed librarian imagined might not corrupt an eager but innocent youth.

There have been times when I reread - or at least leafed through - something because I'd sent a copy to a friend, and what usually happened was that I noticed dozens and dozens of clumsy phrases I wished I could rewrite.

The actual Blue Rose murders, which lie at the core of the three novels, yield various incorrect solutions which assume the status of truth.