Martin Cruz Smith

I'd always been a great fan of George Orwell.

As a novelist, I tell stories and people give me money. Then financial planners tell me stories and I give them money.

If you take the contempt some Americans have for yuppies and multiply it by 10 you might come close to understanding their attitude towards the City, as they call it - London, the people of the south.

I've never said I'm a communist.

There's nothing more fun than sitting in a circle playing with people who are really into it.

I'm a big action junkie. I grew up on the '80s action movies - the bad ones and the good ones.