Most of my stuff is just a series of false leads. I'll approach a story as a subject and then make a whole bunch of different runs at the lead. They're all good writing but they don't connect. So I end up having to string leads together.
I have a three-piece suit. I’m an art collector. I have a funny accent. So I’m probably the killer.
Nothing leads the scientist so astray as a premature truth.
Delaying and withholding tactics, red herrings, partial and doubtful outcomes are stock in trade for fiction writers, especially crime writers.
With a thriller, you're going to have your red herrings, as different suspects are thrown up as possible culprits. You can only explore that for so long - if you do that more than a few times, it starts to get a little redundant.
Very few of my books are about who stole the Maltese Falcon.
There is evidence that some of al Qaeda's nuclear efforts over the years met with swindles and false leads.
Life is full of a thousand red herrings, and it takes the history of a civilisation to work out which are the red herrings and which aren't.
