So what's it about? It starts with a common premise - five friends kill a fellow student in a hit and run and don't own up. The book explores the way they deal with it, both at the time and in the ten years following. What did you do last summer? I did say it was a common premise. Actually, I became aware of the plot of "I Know What You Did Last Summer" when I was halfway through the book. It threw me, of course, but in the end I was confident enough that I was tackling the subject in a different way - no fishermen, no horror, no Jennifer Love Hewitt (sadly). Is it a thriller? No, it's a story about guilt and friendship. Having said that, I didn't think of People Die as a thriller. So you're not particularly familiar with your own books? Don't push your luck. Next question. Is the university in the book based on a real place? It's more or less Lancaster, the English university I attended myself. I changed the names because I didn't want to be hidebound by the real geography of the place. I think anyone who'd studied there would recognize most of it. And what about the characters? Anyone we know? No. On the whole I find it much easier to invent characters. I kind of wish Lorna had been a real person. And Emily Barratt? I wouldn't have let her walk home alone. What more can I say? If she hadn't been alone, she might not have died - end of story. Why was she running? I don't know. I wasn't there.