Charles Palliser

To make it interesting and worth doing, writing a novel has to be a leap into the unknown. I have to be unsure if I can write it; otherwise, I won't want to.

Living with my grandmother in Bath, I sort of thought I was living in the 19th century. My grandmother was someone who, in a way, was rather defiantly trying to live a pre-World War I existence.

I'm quite intrigued by the notion of a book that is completely self-contained but related to another book. I've coined a rather hideous word for it - a paraquel.

Try as I might, Agatha Christie is unique. The actual writing style can't be exactly the same, so instead of trying to replicate it exactly, the way I got around it was by inventing a new narrator.

One Moment in Time because I think it describes me as a person and how I felt about being on the show.

If my house was on fire, I can't compromise about which part of the house I'm going to save. You save the whole house or it will all burn down. We either save this country or we do not.