Sweden has a population of a little over eight million people, and its most successful books sell half a million copies. People read in Sweden. They particularly love mystery novels. That’s true all over Scandinavia.

I cowrote a mystery with a smart, engaging, enormously popular Swedish author, Liza Marklund. The Postcard Killers told the creepy tale of an eerie murder spree across Europe. The killers were brother and sister and the tone was a little like The Talented Mr. Ripley. At least, Liza and I thought so. We’re both Patricia Highsmith fans.

When you publish a book in the U.S. nowadays, you’re lucky if you get one or two interviews. I’m not kidding. If you are interviewed, the same questions get asked over and over again. You start wondering if the press is just one person. A press clone? There might be a creepy horror novel in that.

It’s different in Europe. When I went to Stockholm the week Liza and I published our book, we had forty-seven interviews with newspapers and magazines.

The European interview style is more stimulating and challenging than what I’m used to in America. Reporters ask questions on sociology, history, philosophy, current events that relate to your book. They don’t condescend because you’ve written a “penny dreadful.”

There was one question that almost all the interviewers asked: “How did a Swede and an American ever get together and agree on things? How is that even possible?”

In interview after interview, Liza and I told them that it was really pretty simple for us. Here was our secret: One, you need to have mutual respect, and Liza and I did. Two, you have to listen to one another. Liza and I listened to each other. I think that’s the secret to success in almost everything—listening.

Eventually, a movie was made from the novel. In my opinion, the producers of The Postcard Killings (they changed the title slightly from the book’s) didn’t listen. Not to me, anyway. I’m not sure they had much respect either. The film was, to be kind, not very good. The production company asked me to help promote the film. I apologized but told them I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

What could I have said? “Watching The Postcard Killings gave me the shivers!” But not the good kind.