For men, as they get bogged down with responsibilities, commitments, bureaucracy, it is a fantasy just to think of shedding everything literally, walking away with nothing at all, and just hitting the road.
The British regulatory system was revised, so that bigger profits were encouraged, which removed the option of big spending on programming. Quality just fell off a cliff, and all the old hands either left or were fired for being too expensive.
So, how to stay inside the world of entertainment without actually getting another job? I felt the only logical answer was to become a novelist. So I wrote the first book – driven by some very real feelings of desperation – and it worked.
I’m opposed to censorship of any kind, especially by government. But it’s plain common sense that producers should target their product with some kind of sensitivity.
I’d never believed in luck. Never had any cause to. Never relied on it, because I never could.
People who wear glasses, without them they always look unfocused, vulnerable. Out in the open. A layer removed.
That should be your town motto. It’s all I ever hear. Like: New Hampshire, Live Free or Die. It should be: Despair, You Need To Leave Now.
I have the ‘thing’ worked out – the trick or the surprise or the pivotal fact. Then I just start somewhere and let the story work itself out.
I’m not really into gourmet food; I’m the kind of guy who just stops by a place that looks good rather than heading for the restaurant of the moment.
I’d been a thriller reader all my life.
I was in television drama, which is a first cousin to the movies, and I trust myself to make the right decisions.
I was fired from my television job, simple as that. Well, downsized, really, a classic 1990s situation.
I think my books come out very visual, which is an obvious consequence.
I love Italian food but that’s too generic a term for what’s available now: you have to narrow it down to Tuscan, Sicilian, and so on.
I have a kind of old-fashioned, artisan approach.
I grew up in Birmingham, where they made useful things and made them well.
I don’t know what the secret is when I am writing it – it really is a surprise to me.
For me the end of a book is just as exciting as it is for a reader.
British crime stories tend to be very internal, psychological, claustrophobic, very limited in terms of geography.
All of us write wish fulfillment.