‘This is often the case with writing; extended longueurs which can seem to last for centuries, when you simply have to trust that, somewhere, beneath the implacable, icy mass, idea pebbles are being tumbled and turned.’
'Patrick Hardy, interested in my project — now called Tricky Tricks — asked me to come in to see him and demonstrate a few of the tricks. Mummified Finger? Flapping Thing? Vanishing Flower? I wondered nervously.'
'A classic crime story starts with a dead body and then we work backwards, often with a central detective character, to find out how this came about. Whereas a thriller starts with a huge potential danger and a race against time to prevent it.'