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" I was never obsessed with being adopted. I was simply curious about my biological parents. "

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" We're all amateur investigators. We scan bookshelves, we ogle trinkets left out in the open, we calculate the cost of furniture and study the photographs on display; sometimes we even check out the medicine cabinet. "

" I love 'The Wire'. I can't think of a television show that I think is superior to it in any way. I was obsessed with it from the moment it came on the air. I do also love 'Doctor Who' and 'Get Smart'. "

" I have certain rules for snooping, under which anything out in the open is fair game. "

" I'm not a huge fan of research, but sometimes you get an idea, and then you realize you don't know anything. "

" I've always adored the filmmaker Sam Fuller. The first time I watched 'Shock Corridor' was such a magnificent discovery. I love his lack of subtlety, the way he tackles serious topics with bold and inappropriate humor. "

" If you're trying to hide, avoid using your own name. Have a couple spares that you can pull out of your pocket anytime, the more thoroughly documented the better. "

" I'd like to think that if I were in prison for a crime I didn't commit, someone would be trying to get me the hell out of there. "

" There's no reason why a writer shouldn't explore and use different genres. "

" I was young, maybe 4, when I learned where babies came from. "

" I learned how to cross-country ski. "

" I loved writing the Spellman novels, but I never had any plan to only write in one genre. "

" Band I listen to most: The Ramones. "

" I wrote the first draft of 'Plan B' the summer after I turned 21. "

" To properly investigate a subject, we must investigate a subject's stuff. "

" My mother, at sixty, is one of those classic beauties: all neck and cheekbones, sharp lines that hide her wrinkles from a distance. She still gets whistles from construction workers from three stories up. "

" I investigate more directly. I tend to ask a lot of questions and don't feel satisfied until I have the answer. "

" People transform in some ways, and they remain exactly the same in others. Often, the thing you'd like to change the most about yourself is where you will forever remain stuck. "

" I liked the idea of exposing the beams in collaborative novel. And there are many - especially in the crime world - there are many people working together: James Patterson and his stable of sub authors; and then there are like Ken Bruen and Reed Farrel Coleman and Jason Starr. "

Working Together

" I worked for a private investigative agency briefly. I rarely had the opportunity to snoop. "

" I could never really choose a favorite book, but whenever I'm asked what my favorite movie is, I always say 'Withnail & I,' a British film from 1987. It's funny and sad and absolutely gorgeous to look at. It's the film I can watch over and over again. "

" I didn't feel a strong bond with the parents who raised me, and I had anything but a happy childhood. My mother was overly sensitive; my father, ascetic. I was neither. I felt as if I were living with complete strangers. I suspect that my parents felt the same way. "

" I usually have a sense of where my characters are personally and ways in which they might transform throughout the novel. But I never know at the outset how the book will end, nor do I ever stick to my original plan. "

" You can't be suspicious 24/7. It's too exhausting. "

" Humor is the only way to tell a story. Especially the dark ones. "

" I'm always accused of being a crime novelist, but I'm not really. "

" While I had no intention of ending the series after 'The Spellmans Strike Again,' I did close many doors in that book and, with the fifth one, I was opening a lot of doors and not finding anything behind them and then opening another door and another until I found something. It was a while before I found my stride. "

" The sense of not knowing where I came from let me be as smart as I wanted to be. "

" Six years after I wrote the first draft of 'Plan B,' I received my first paycheck as a writer. It included both the $3,000 in deferred option money as well as half the fee for performing the initial rewrite. The amount was scale according to the Writer's Guild guidelines, but a lot, according to me. "

" My writing process is chaos. I usually start with an overarching theme. Then I establish several story threads, but I don't outline. I just start writing and keep notes for what may come. It's an organic process that's usually pretty flexible. "

" I've got no business giving advice to anyone. Even a fictional character. "