Interviews
A Conversation with James Patterson
about
2nd Chance
2nd Chance
Q. The Women's Murder Club is back in action again with 2nd Chance. Since this series follows a numerical sequence is there a certain number of books that you have planned with Lindsay, Claire, Cindy, and Jill?
A. I love writing about the Women's Murder Club, even more than Alex Cross, and I'll keep writing about them until I get tired of the characters. I will not guarantee, however, that Lindsay, Claire, Cindy and Jill will remain in the series until it concludes. In fact, I'm almost positive, one of them will depart, and possibly soon.
Q. Why did you decide to choose San Francisco as the locale for the Women's Murder Club series? Is there something particular in the city that intrigued you?
A. I love San Francisco, who doesn't. For me, the scariest murders are those that take place in places where murder just shouldn't happen.
Q. Now that you have two different series, Alex Cross and the Women's Murder Club, if you have an idea for a villain and his/her crime, how you decide which storyline and character(s) to pair with each series?
A. I don't have any hard line about which villains or crimes will go into the two different series. At this point, the Cross books are a little more graphic.
Q. How have your readers responded to this new series? Do you find that your male readers are just as excited about these four dynamic women as they are about Alex Cross?
A. The response has been beyond my wildest dreams. So far, I haven't had any complaints, and the praise has been higher than I deserve. I'm finding that men like the four lead characters just about as well as women do.
Q. Is there a chance that we will ever see Alex Cross and the Women's Murder Club combine forces to solve a case?
A. Actually I wanted to do this — but Paramount Pictures stopped me cold. They said if Alex Cross ever wound up in a Women's Murder Club Book then they would own all of those characters too. Needless to say, I wasn't tremendously happy with that decision.
Q. Will we ever see the Mullen family again in a future book? Or possibly in a movie?
A. The Beach House seems to be a hot summer read in Hollywood, too. A director and a writer, really terrific ones, are about to attach themselves to the movie. As far as seeing the Mullen Family again, who knows, but I've learned to never say never.
Q. We have already seen two of your books, Along Came a Spider and Kiss the Girls, on the big screen. Are there plans for any others?
A. Roses are Red and Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas have both been bought for the movies. I expect that The Beach House and a medieval thriller I'm working on will also be bought.
Q. In the future if there are screen versions of the Women's Murder Club series, do you have any ideas for actresses you would like to see play the parts of Lindsay, Claire, Cindy, and Jill?
A. I think the really fun game is for the reader to try and put actresses against the various characters in the Women's Murder Club. There are so many absolutely terrific actresses who would work. Play the game yourself.
Q. Last year you thrilled your readers with the introduction of this new series and you wrote your first love story, what new and exciting project can we expect from James Patterson in 2002?
A. In June Little, Brown will be publishing The Beach House, which is kind of James Patterson meets John Grisham. I guarantee that it has a courtroom sequence like nothing you've ever read before. Then, in the fall, my favorite Alex Cross novel in years-it's called Four Blind Mice. And as I said earlier, I'm working on an incredibly fast-paced thriller set in medieval times; and also a love story along the lines of Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas. So yes, I'm keeping busy.
