Where do you get your ideas? Which comes first, the characters or the plot?
These are two of the questions that people often ask writers.

I remember the moment Lexie, the main character in Still Death, came to my mind – reading a newspaper article outside a café on a road trip in New South Wales, Australia. That was four or five years and several other projects ago, but she’s hung since then, and I guess that answers the opening questions.

Originally Lexie was going to be the main character in a...