Andrew O'Hagan

Marilyn turns up everywhere in my writing.

For detectives of these things, there are two constants in all of my books.

I think Marilyn turns up in most of them at one point or another, the way perhaps Alfred Hitchcock would cross the screen in all of his movies, almost like a signature.

And also Robert Burns, the great Scottish poet, who's another writer whose collected poems have punctuated my life

From first learning to read to right now, Robert Burns' voice is part of my inner ear now almost.

I hear that delightful, very kind of democratic sound.

The sound of humanity speaking to itself and each other is there in those poems.

So Robert Burns, I suppose, a bit like Marilyn, is a kind of leitmotif, a constant image that returns and always makes a little appearance in the books at some point.

Yes.

There was in fact a book, the 1970s edition of David Copperfield by Ed

in the Penguin edition, was read again and again by me, and I'd pass it back to my friends because, although it's a very exciting story, but it also reveals something about how to be a person and also how to be a friend.

The friendships in that book are incredibly memorable.

Steerforth, immediately when he arrives on the page, seems like a great friend.

He's a bit like that guy I described, the popular...

heroic, good-looking figure who you want to be your best pal.

And David Copperfield, he proves a bit of a disappointment.

He's a bit of a double dealer.

And that's a big energy in that book.

But other friendships exist sometimes across generations, that there's an older person and a younger person who forge an alliance or an understanding.

And that always appealed to me in books when I was younger.