In America, they have specialist mystery book stores with whole sections devoted to cat mysteries, golf mysteries, quilting mysteries. It's a hugely broad genre from the darkest noir to tales of a 19th-century vet who solves crimes, thanks to his talking cat.

I moved from acting to stand-up because castings are just about what you look like. It doesn't matter if you can act or not. In comedy, no one cares what you look like.

I admire writers such as Elmore Leonard who can nail a character in three or four lines of dialogue, so he doesn't need pages of back story or clumsy exposition.

Mark Billingham Quotes