"I have always wanted to write mysteries, ever since I was a little girl growing up in rural Indiana.  We used to ride our ponies to the library and fill up the saddlebags with books, and then read up on the hayloft of the barn behind our house.  I fell in love with Hercule Poirot, Sherlock Holmes, and Nancy Drew.  And that's when I decided I wanted to either be a detective or a mystery author."

"It may take weeks or months to research an investigative story for television, I can write the script in one day.  If pressed, I could write the script in an hour.  But there is no way I could write a novel in any less time than, say, nine months.  No matter how much pressure there is. ... It is much more layered, textured, complicated.  And it is all from my imagination."

"News stories are compelling mysteries.  Life is a compelling mystery.  The key of a compelling mystery is—as it is in journalism—to constantly advance the story.  No tangents, no digressions, no fancy tricked-up writing. Just a straight-ahead and irresistible tale."

"In learning how to tell a story, and learning how to develop my craft and skill as a storyteller, nothing could have been better practice than investigative journalism. ... From the standpoint of keeping the reader/viewer interested, and being riveting, suspenseful, educational, and entertaining, it's the same thing.  Choosing exactly the right word, choosing exactly the right sound bit or dialogue, making sure the setting is vibrant and that the conclusion is life-changing.  That's exactly the same."

"Writing crime fiction and doing investigative journalism can be quite similar ... because in essence, both are about telling a great story.  A fabulous, riveting, compelling story, with characters you care about and problems that need to be solved.  You're tracking down clues, following leads, and convincing people to talk.  (Whether they are imaginary or real.)  You want the good guys to win, and the bad guys to get what's coming to them.  And in the end, you want to change the world.  And—incredibly important—you want to be enlightening as well as entertaining."

"One day, I had a great idea for a mystery.  I knew it was a good idea; I got goosebumps and became obsessed.  I announced to my husband, 'I'm going to write a mystery.'  He was sweetly skeptical, but supportive, and I was naively compelled to write it.  I had no idea what I was doing, but I thought—I've read a million mysteries!  I'll learn.  I was 55 years old, and that book turned out to be Prime Time, which won the Agatha for Best First Novel."