It's taken a while but finally Wellington joins New York, Los Angeles, New Orleans and Paul Cleave's Christchurch as a cool crime novel city. As Anne Harre described it: "Dig a little deeper and the city is unforgiving and unrepentant. Forget the politicians, they're poor amateurs in deception and crime..." Before launching her life of crime writing, Anne has been a music teacher, bookseller, freelance editor and reviewer, and editor for the New Zealand Poetry Society anthology. All the better to dive into the many layers of Wellington life in her debut novel The Leaning Man. It centres on Stella Weston - relentless, foul-mouthed and tenacious, everything you want in a private eye. Yadana Saw asks Anne who inspired her anti-heroine.