S. J. Rozan

When a crime is committed, only the victim and the victim's close circle experience the event as pain, terror, death. To people hearing or reading about it, crime is a metaphor, a symbol of the ancient battles fought every day: evil versus good, chaos versus order.

Chinatown is tremendously interesting... It's a part of the city that hasn't really been explored in crime literature or in any general literature. It's as though Chinatown didn't exist. People write about New York without mentioning Chinatown at all.

I don't really know what it is about vampires that makes them such a powerful symbol, metaphor, whatever in people's consciousness. But I do know they're tremendously powerful. I mean, there's a vampire on 'Sesame Street.' And Count Chocula. I don't know why it's so powerful.