Moscow had this incredible, intense atmosphere of intrigue and darkness and secrecy.

When I read period material - and it ain't on Google - I am always alert for that one incredible detail. I'll read a whole book and get three words out of it, but they'll be three really good words.

You could be a victim, you could be a hero, you could be a villain, or you could be a fugitive. But you could not just stand by. If you were in Europe between 1933 and 1945, you had to be something.

I started out when I was 29 - too young to write novels. I was broke. I was on unemployment insurance. I was supposed to be writing a Ph.D. dissertation, so I had a typewriter and a lot of paper.

Seattle's support system got me through those early, difficult years. It was a very funky, very friendly, very relaxed place that had it all for a writer.

Poland is a wildly dramatic and tragic story. It's just unbelievable what went on with those people. How they survive, I don't really know. The Germans had a particular hatred for the Poles; they really considered them subhuman Slavs, and they were very brutal to them.