[And now that he's graduated to hardcover and 11-city book tour status, he's found there's a real advantage to the standalone novels that Dutton suggested he write.] You can explore broader themes in a standalone novel, ... You can put your character through much greater levels of hell.

I had started writing the fourth Whit Mosley book, ... I was 40 pages into it, and then Dutton asked me if I would consider writing a standalone. The series novel can do a lot to build a loyal readership, but the standalone is sometimes easier for the publisher to market to a broader audience.

He is singularly unequipped to beat these people.

We do something like this every year. Then this catastrophe hit, and it seemed like the obvious choice to help.

[It's a model that Alfred Hitchcock drew on for many of his movies.] If there was a film that inspired me in writing 'Panic,' it was 'North by Northwest,' ... Those are my favorite Hitchcock films -- the ones where ordinary, everyday people are going about their lives, and they take this dramatic left turn.

You can't be a professor and talk out of a textbook to teach locomotive operations. You can't create the end product without hands-on training.