Bankrate: Which was more thrilling -- to have your first novel published or to receive the Pulitzer Prize?

Buchanan: Boy, it's a tossup. Getting the Pulitzer was almost like a dream. The novel was my own; the Pulitzer, when I won that, I felt it was a major victory for every beat reporter out there in the trenches. Remember a few years ago when the reporter for The Washington Post wrote the story about a little crack addict and, after she won the Pulitzer, they found out she made the whole thing up and the kid never existed, so they took the Pulitzer away? For years after that, they were sort of afraid to give the prize to a lone beat reporter like her, and they tended to give it to large groups of reporters who couldn't all be conspiring. So when I won it, being alone out there on the police beat all that time, it was like a victory for every beat reporter out there fighting the good fight every day.

Bankrate: Fiction has had a positive effect on your financial position as well.

Buchanan: It's funny. You never get rich being a reporter, but I always felt relatively comfortable. Plus, I moonlighted all the time. I never got in trouble for it because that was before they started cracking down and I always told my editors what I was doing. I never turned down overtime and I never turned down a freelance job, unless it was something I obviously couldn't do because I worked for the paper. For a while, I was a stringer for Newsweek. They didn't pay a lot but I always needed to make more money. I think when I got the job at The Herald, I was driving a Camaro, then I got a Mercury Cougar, then after I started writing books, I got a Lincoln Continental. I loved that car. I still carry a grudge about World War II so I always buy American. I have the car of my dreams now and I absolutely love it. It's a 2006 Ford Crown Victoria. I love that car. They say it was the last year they were selling it to civilians. It's identical to the police cars without the black-and-white paint. It has enough room in the trunk that you could fold five bodies into it and still have room for groceries -- five dead Colombians and two weeks worth of groceries. In my previous car I couldn't even fit my gun in the glove compartment.

Bankrate: You've carried a gun for some time now, right?

Buchanan: Yeah. I have a permit to carry a gun, although I rarely carry it because it's heavy and bulky. I haven't practiced a lot at the range lately because I have a problem with nerve damage in my hands. I used to love to go shoot at the range but I can't, so I just have guns around for personal protection, not for sport.