Yes, there are bad apples, but I do feel journalists do a good job, often in very difficult circumstances.

Over the years, I've interviewed the victims, the guilty, the famous, the important, and the ordinary people affected by tragedy or good fortune. But strangely, it is not always the people in the spotlight that have stayed with me. It is often those on the periphery, the bit players in the drama, that continue to haunt.

As a journalist, I've been a professional watcher, picking up the body language and verbal tics that make us individuals and interesting to others.

Donna Tartt is a genius.

The secrets of small towns have fascinated writers and readers since the first psychological thriller was penned.

The righting of historic wrongs has chimed with something fundamental in me since I was a young reader. I love the forensic skills, the psychological insights, and the sheer bloody-mindedness of various detectives - professional or accidental - inching toward the truth of a long-buried secret.

For most of us, our protective lies or omissions are so insignificant that being found out would be only mildly embarrassing. But for some of us, our secret may threaten to destroy everything. And that is food and drink to a novelist.

We may like to pretend otherwise, but we all have thoughts we don't want anyone else to know, things we've done that would change the way people feel about us, or parts of our lives that we would rather forget.

It was this fascination with hidden lives, I suspect, that led me to journalism; seeking to uncover the truth about people became a job.

For me, there has always been the irresistible lure of a secret.