When I was 26, I wrote my first mystery, 'The Thomas Berryman Number', and it was turned down by, I don't know, 31 publishers. Then it won an Edgar for Best First Novel. Go figure.

The 2005 figure turned out to be lower than that of 2003, because the number of those who had contracted HIV/AIDS through illegal blood selling practices was actually overestimated in 2003.

I wrote my first novel because I wanted to read it.

I wrote my first novel, 'Deadline,' in 1994 as an experiment.

I wrote the first draft of my first novel at Michigan, and then I wrote the first draft of 'Salvage the Bones' at Stanford. So I workshopped the entire thing.

I'd never written a novel before, and I wrote a novel, and that turned out OK.