I am trying to give the best performance possible in 400 pages. I want readers to be scared; I want them to be moved. Entertainment doesn't necessarily mean something trivial, but it does mean people wanting to get to the end of a book.

Having worked as both comedian and crime writer, the one thing I know is that both involve the delivery of a performance.

When I began to write, I was surprised at how little London had been used in crime fiction. Places such as Edinburgh or Oxford or L.A. seemed to have stronger identities.

I admire writers such as Elmore Leonard who can nail a character in three or four lines of dialogue, so he doesn't need pages of back story or clumsy exposition.

My humor isn't meant to be mean or hurt anyone. But it's to make them uncomfortable and laugh. I like making people feel a different range of emotions. I like to make people a bit confused.

I've always thought that Lewis Carroll himself had a certain comedy tinge to him. He was a guy who was a satirist. He really was a social commentator in many ways and was trying to satirize Victorian society.

My day jobs... I knew I was bad at those, so I didn't really have the confidence to think that I could do comedy. But I knew I hated the day jobs.

You never heard of a comedy team that didn't fight, did you?