When I first started writing the books in the 1980s, all of the female detectives were flawed in some way because they were based on noir characters.

I think it is rather heroic to go into a war zone where everyone is trying to kill you, and you have no way of shooting back.

Most detective story readers are an educated audience and know there are only a certain number of plots. The interest lies in what the writer does with them.

I decided that if I want to write about a female hero in the 1920s, I'm going to have to give her all the advantages I can because she has serious disadvantages in being a woman. I wasn't going to have her cowed or overawed by class, so she had to be titled.

Salzburg improved me as a player, and I learnt so much there. I got a really tactical education.

I'm obsessed with TV. How wrong our parents were when they said we should only watch an hour a day. Stop wasting your time reading books.

The question is, will we continue to fight what may be a rearguard action to defend universal literacy as a central goal of our education system, or are we bold enough to see what's actually happening to our culture?

We have a list of human rights - right to food, right to shelter, right to health, right to education, many such items which are considered and accepted as bill of rights. These are to be insured to people. So all nations, all societies try to do that.