Chris Brookmyre

And she does it without giving the reader whiplash.

In a way, the character of Alex makes me think that she inhabits that role because, or there's a parallel, because he seems to be always on the outside analysing how people are responding to things.

And I think that's her role as the author.

She's showing you how they respond to things.

She's putting them in these difficult situations.

But he's doing that too.

And so he sees himself as apart from them all because of that.

And it's at times funny and at times quite cruel almost.

You know, sometimes they've been given the most awful news and he's asking, could you please note what your heart rate was or how you felt in that particular moment?

He's lucky nobody whacks him over the head at any point.

Yes, she is.

She's really sinister and she is a bully.

She's a thief, really.

There's a wonderful, but she's also...

She's also beautifully vain.

You know, she's got this, you feel tenderly towards her because she's got this vanity and the vanity is a weakness.

And there's a point when she's standing outside a bombed out building and a policeman asks if she's OK.

And she thinks that the policeman thinks that she's soliciting.

But he isn't.

He just thinks, oh, that poor old lady standing next to this ruin.