How did the idea for this book come to you?

The book takes place in an apartment building near my current home, a place where my wife used to live. The landlord was notoriously unpleasant, and I started thinking about the odd relationships we have with our neighbors. People we see every day at the grocery, in the elevator, the laundry room. Folks we think we know and might even consider friends, but perhaps in reality they're a lot more interesting and suspicious than we ever imagined.

People are always intrigued by a writer's path to publication - tell us a bit about yours.

I did it the hard way, in that I wasn't smart enough to realize there were conferences, writers' groups, and places to meet people who could help you along, provide moral support, and maybe save you from a few skinned knees behind the keyboard. I had been writing as a hobby and finally decided to try my hand at a novel, during which time I was also writing short stories because I love the form. I wrote what I loved, which was crime fiction, and set out to write a book that I would want to read the next time I was stuck on an airplane or on vacation. Something fresh, unexpected, but also unapologetically entertaining.

My short stories started to get noticed, and that was a huge confidence builder, and then I began the long and painful process of finding an agent, one query at a time. After that it was a stamina game, writing the next book while we shopped the first one, which paid off. The first question my original publisher asked when they bought Stealing The Dragon was "Can he write another book in this series?" Fortunately I already had.

Which writers have been most influential for you?

Joe R. Lansdale, who balances humor and intensity better than any writer out there. Elmore Leonard, who opened up the possibilities of what a crime novel could be and remains one of the cleanest stylists around. Loren Estleman. Lee Child. Robert Crais. There's a long and eclectic list, but those writers, for different reasons, have been ongoing inspirations.

What is the most challenging aspect of the writing process?

Getting started! Once I'm about a third of the way into a novel I can barely keep up with the characters. But getting through that first arc takes more discipline that I have on most days.

If you were to give an aspiring mystery writer one bit of advice, what would it be?

Keep writing. I never would have believed this, but it is like exercise or any sport. You get better, more confident, and the more you write, the more you start to think like a writer. Pretty soon instead of writing you'll feel like you're channeling the voices of your characters. So write something every day, even if it's a note to yourself to write again tomorrow.

Contributing editor, Clare Langley-Hawthorne, was raised in England and Australia. She was an attorney in Melbourne before moving to the United States, where she began her career as a writer. Her first novel, Consequences of Sin, has been nominated for the 2008 Sue Feder Memorial Historical Mystery Macavity award. The second in the Ursula Marlow series is The Serpent and The Scorpion. Clare lives in California with her family.