Your last book, COMPANY OF LIARS, was chosen as a Waterstone Book-of-the-Year.  How has that affected your career?

Writers spend months working on a book almost in solitary confinement and, because you are doing it alone you have no idea if your writing is good or bad. Like many insecure writers, I always tend to think the worst of my writing, so when Waterstone chose my book, it was a tremendous confidence boost. Most importantly that kind of promotion helps to make readers aware the book exists.  Book sales and your whole writing career depends on readers hearing about the book, reading it and passing the word on to other readers.  It's wonderful to get good reviews, but it's actually the individual readers that have the power to create an 'author'.

THE OWL KILLERS is coming out in both the U.K. and the States, but not simultaneously.  Why not? 

The book is being published by two different publishers, Penguin in the UK and Bantam Dell in the Sates. Every book has to form an orderly queue and wait until that publisher has a slot for the title. Much depends on when their designers and production teams are free to work on the book. Publishers in the UK and USA also have different times of the year when they like to launch books for their markets.

Do British and American readers look for the same thing or are there differences?

I think readers are looking for the same elements of plot and character, but many American writers do more 'emoting' than the British. American comedians joke about how to tell when a Brit is angry - 'I'm terribly sorry old chap, but your nose is in danger of making contact with my fist.' Though that is a slight exaggeration, many middle-class English resort to using silence or oblique phrases when they are furious, so the British are used to reading a lot into what is not said.  American writers are often more upfront about emotions and their characters use gutsy language to tell each other directly when they are upset or angry. And I really love it - it's so liberating.

You live in Lincoln now, not far from Sherwood Forest.  Has living in Robin Hood country affected your writing?

I've always been fascinated by in the way the Robin Hood legend has evolved over the years and is still growing. One of the major themes of THE OWL KILLERS is how legends are born and take on a life of their own with devastating consequences. The power of legends features in much of my writing. They can inspire people for good or evil, and can become deadly weapons even more dangerous and destructive than physical violence, since they shape the way we think and behave for generations.

In its review of COMPANY OF LIARS, The Daily Telegraph reviewer wrote, "Maitland writes so well that if you open the book and read any page at random turning to the next is irresistible."  Where did you hone your craft?
 
That was such lovely thing to say. Strangely enough, it was writing non-fiction that helped me to write fiction. With a team of other writers, I was commissioned to produce non-fiction books about issues like urban regeneration. Our brief was to write about it in an exciting way that would make over-worked government officers want to read a cracking good page-turner instead of just filing the book in their desk. As I interviewed people for the books, I discovered that many seemingly 'ordinary' people have lived the most extraordinary lives. Their stories would inspire anyone to write.

You've joined up with half a dozen other writers who have formed a little collective, The Medieval Murderers.  Are medieval thrillers going to be the next big thing?

I really believe they are. When times are bad, people love to read about periods when they were worse. However awful the current situation, we still have to be thankful we weren't struggling to live in the Middle Ages when serial-murderers were only one of the many forces hell-bent on trying to kill you on a daily basis.

The great thing setting thrillers in Middle Ages is that the characters have to solve the problems for themselves without the aid of technology. If there's a mad axe-murderer on the doorstep, a medieval heroine can't phone for police, which really adds to the thrill factor. If there is a killer to be nailed, the hero can't run a DNA test or whip out his finger-print kit. Unlike a modern novel, in a medieval story you don't have to invent a reason for a power cut. Medieval people also had a great belief in the supernatural forces which gives you another dimension for fear. Put all this against natural backdrops of the period - bloody wars, plagues, gruesome punishments and instant executions, and you can really raise the shiver factor.

Are you writing full-time now?  What's next?

I'm currently writing another medieval thriller, with the working title of THE MANDRAKE'S TALE. (You heard it here first!) I'm also writing a joint novel with the Medieval Murderers, called THE SACRED STONE, in which each of us writes a self-contained thriller set in our own medieval period, but every story is centred on the same object which passes down through the centuries. Great fun interweaving the tales.

Contributing editor Keith Raffel wrote DOT DEAD, "without question the most impressive mystery debut of the year" according to Bookreporter.com.  His next book, SMASHER, a thriller set in Silicon Valley, is due out this fall.