Author

'The Chosen,' if you recall, was based on the Chaim Potok novel and featured Robbie Benson's persuasive performance as a Hasidic Jew.

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.

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

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'.

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

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.

Years ago, when my attempts at a writing career came to a complete stand-still, I applied to the Los Angeles Police Department. This might seem odd for a liberal woman who once went to UC Santa Cruz, but I've always had a powerful fascination with crime and serious interest in finding different ways to contend with it.

I learned how to cross-country ski.

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

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

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.

I have certain rules for snooping, under which anything out in the open is fair game. But I also think, in light of some current trends in our culture, that privacy should be respected.

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

Hair color is the easiest way to change your appearance, but a bad dye job might draw more attention to you.

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

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

Sometimes a single item can wrap up, in a nutshell, who a person is. In my grandparents' home, a clear plastic container was enthroned on top of the mahogany bar for at least a decade. Painted on the lid in pink, yellow and light blue was 'Have a Nosh With Mort & Ethel'.

For more than three months, I had been president and primary owner of Spellman Investigations, and I can say with complete certainty that I had more power in this office as an underling. My title, it seemed, was purely decorative. I was captain of an unfashionable and sinking ship.

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.