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" When my children were very young, I was slated to go on a business trip. When it was nearly canceled, I decided I wouldn't tell anyone and go off for a week's vacation anyway. In the end, the trip went off as planned. But I was intrigued by the idea of an illicit holiday. "

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" The brilliant thing about swimming is that, while you're doing it, there's nothing else you could be getting on with, like the ironing or sorting out the children. My mind goes into free-float mode; some of the best ideas for plots come into my head while I'm ploughing up and down the pool. "

Sophie Hannah

Best

Mind

Ideas

" Crime fiction is a way of satisfying that nosy need to know. "

" I'm snobby about books that aren't crime fiction: if I start reading a literary novel and there's no mystery emerging in the first few pages, I'm like, 'Gah, this obviously isn't a proper book. Why would I want to carry on reading it?' "

" When a writer tries to copy another writer, it's doomed to fail. "

" I never write about CIA conspiracies or the FBI or mafia or anything like that because I just don't understand that world. But I think I do understand individual human harmfulness. "

" The crimes in my books are committed by people who can't keep it together any more. They do something to express their own pain, and that has a terrible effect on somebody else. "

" My father, whose hobby was collecting secondhand cricket books, came back from a book fair one day with a copy of 'The Body In The Library.' "

" I know a lot of crime writers feel very underrated, like they're not taken seriously, and they want to be just thought of as writers rather than ghettoised as crime writers, but I love being thought of firmly as a crime writer. "

" My characters all have issues, but I don't see that as weird or abnormal because I think in real life there are very few bland, normal people. "

" Just because someone has stylistic limitations doesn't necessarily make them a worse writer. "

" Cambridge is heaven, I am convinced it is the nicest place in the world to live. As you walk round, most people look incredibly bright, as if they are probably off to win a Nobel prize. "

" There are very few well-adjusted people in my books. But I do think that's normal. Because everyone does have their issues and hang-ups. "

" Everything is personal - the poems and the crime novels. I have never been involved in any murders, but there are strong autobiographical elements in each. "

" Most crime fiction plots are not ambitious enough for me. I want something really labyrinthine with clues and puzzles that will reward careful attention. "

" I always notice the dysfunctional dynamic of human relationships because most places where you encounter it, people are trying to pretend it isn't happening. "

" I've got lots of favourite authors, but I would say Nicci French because I look more forward to reading her next new book than any other author. "

" I want my books to explore motives which make people think, 'Wow! Imagine the psychological state you'd have to be in for that to be your motive!' Whereas things like blackmail, jealousy - they're rational reasons for committing murder. "

Sophie Hannah

Want

You

" No highbrow literary type would ever say 'Moby Dick' is good but it's just about a whale, or a Jane Austen would be important if she wasn't just writing about romantic relationships. "

" In West Yorkshire, I'd have to drive three quarters of an hour to go shopping. "

Sophie Hannah

Drive

West

" No one has been buried at Mill Road Cemetery in Cambridge, England, for many years, and so the place has a shady, overgrown magic about it. "

" My crime novels are highly structured. I never start out with a dead body. I start with an impossible scenario. Opening questions should be mysterious, weird, intriguing, and contain the seeds of the solution. The structure has to be meticulous - I'm a structure freak. "

" I am actually incredibly contented and jolly. But, and I have no idea why this is, I have a really strong empathy with all kinds of warped and destructive modes of thinking. I don't know why, but those things co-exist. "

" In a crime novel, if you are going to have a big revelation in chapter 30, you have to plant the information in chapters three and 11. "

" Only Agatha Christie can write like Agatha Christie. "

Sophie Hannah

Only

Write

" My favourite Friday treat is to drive out of the centre of Cambridge, where we live, and go for a swim at the health club I've just joined out in the countryside at Quy. It's a lovely pool, inside a converted barn. Usually it's just me and a couple of other swimmers there. "

Sophie Hannah

Live

Treat

" If you ask people if they enjoy crime novels, they'll say, 'Oh, my guilty pleasure is...' then name a really brilliant crime writer. "

" Reading is the only area of my life in which I prefer to be non-autonomous. "

" What surprised me most while writing 'The Monogram Murders' was that everything I needed seemed to arrive in my head exactly when I needed it. "

Sophie Hannah

Head

Most

" I was working as a secretary in Manchester and thought I would always do that. Then I got this letter offering me a two-year fellowship where I could write; they would pay me a salary and give me a flat to live in. It was heaven. "

" I am a fellow commoner at Lucy Cavendish College. My husband used to be a lecturer at Leeds University, and we lived in Yorkshire for 11 years. When he gave up his job, we realised we could live wherever we liked. "