All right, ladies and gentlemen. You know how excited to get about my
authors and I'm always talking about my Women's Murder Club, and James Patterson happens
to be the genius behind all of those, one of my favorite authors on
the entire planet, taking time out of his day to chat with us.
Hi, James, how are you? Hey? I'm good. You know
when you're in a lot of my territory. I kind of grew up in
Lexington, mass spent a lot of time on the Cape as a kid,
and my our son went to Brown so we spent a lot of time in
Providence. So a lot of New England stuff in our blood. Well,
ah, my sisters in Maine. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, listen.
We even have something closer that you don't even know about. So I unfortunately
had to have Ah, this is ridiculous, just gloss over the surgery part,
but I ended up having to have eye surgery. And you were coming
to the Mark Twain House and my friend Jacques was putting it on and I
was supposed to be there and I couldn't go, and I was heartbroken.
I had my tickets and everything because you are literally so she got you signed
a book The Eleventh Hour. You signed it for me and I have a
yeah, yeah, man, that was great. You know, Mark Twain
is terrific. Well, and that brings me, you know, to the
current thing, which is similar like if you wrote a book about Mark Twain.
The idea of Holmes, Marble and Pope. I took it out to
Hollywood and I said to him, I said, you all ought to just
buy this on the title Marple and Poe, and they did. But you
think about it as a crime solving team, Oh my god. You know,
Alice Cross will go out of the Women's Murder Club and they're they're really
good at it. But when you get you know, Sherlock Holmes level of
quality, Miss Marple and then and then Edgar Allan Poe, and they're all
descendants of not of the fictional characters, which would be kind of bizarre but
interesting, but they're you know, Holmes is a descendant of Arthur Conan Doyle,
and Marple in the books is a descendant of Agarthur Christie, and then
Poe obviously a descendant of eded Grell and Pope. But it's really it's a
great crime solving team, and it's if you like the Women's Murder Club.
I think you love it. It's it's a really cool uh team, and
they and they're together and they they all live in one building, which is
interesting, and they have this wonderful library which has all of everything that all
the show like called stuff, all the christy stuff, all the you know.
So it's just fun. And obviously I'm excited about it because I'm babbling.
Well, no, you babble away. And now it was just released
on the Ace, so it's very new to everybody. Holmes, Marple and
Poe by James Patterson and O'Brian Sits. And I'll tell you what, I
am so excited about this book that I am a a. I have to
hold a book in my hands, so I will buy the hardcover and I
will enjoy it and I will be taken away as you always do with your
your readers. James, you found that that key, that magical key that
unlocks just theater of the mind, which is why it's what is your process?
I have to ask you? And in combining this trio of like legendary
and iconic names together, where on earth did this came? We start with
I always start with the idea that I I find interesting that I'm excited,
that I'm passionate about about moving it forward. And then I'll do a long
outline I just finished. When it's one hundred and ten chapter outline, it's
about seventy pages. That's just the outline, you know, So that's where
I start. That's just you know, in terms of the way I tell
stories, and it's always just scene after scene after scene after seene, which
you know, for me, it makes it a little easier. And you
know, like for this one, I might you know, like put on
a couple of pieces of paper all the potential home scenes and all the potential
Marble scenes and then the ones we're there together, and you know, and
and then ultimately it's almost like you being in an editing room if you're editing
a movie and you take all the scenes and decide what the strike, you
know, what the order should be. So it's interesting that you have all
of these characters combined. And we never want to give anything away, obviously
we want people to read the book, but I do have to ask you,
how did you or how were you able to weave them all together,
because they're all leading characters. Yeah, well that's the fun of it.
But they're friends, I mean in terms of the book, and they get
along well, and they start a well here's a little piece from from the
book which in terms of homes Markling Paul investigations, he said, you plicked
a business card from his wallet with the flare of an illusionist. Samantha took
it home s Markling poet. She said, Is that a joke? Holmes
leaned over the desk. Absolutely not. We're private investigators, the best there
is, you know, And that's that's a little spirit of it. You
know, it's I just got goosebumps because when you have your favorite author reading
to you, it's kind of like a moment to savor. But you know,
with all of your books and through all of the years and all of
the different characters, and you also work with a lot of people, what
is it like to collaborate and how important is it to you in your career
to share some of your success and and bring people along with you. I
obviously I couldn't do all of the books that I do if I didn't have
some help. And it's really important that the people I work with that we
get along. I've never had an argument with any of them honestly, which
is which is interesting, Like President Clinton, no problems, Dolly Parton,
no problems. I just finished one. Uh well, Michael Crichton is deceased,
but his estate came to me to finish a book about a volcano in
Hawaii. It's it's great, it's coming out in June. You know.
Obviously no problems. But the estate also it didn't give me any problems.
So so yeah, and it's And I always want to work with people that
that that I that I enjoy it and I want to stimulate them, and
they stimulate me, so it's good. Let me ask you a question,
So do you do you still like to hold a book or have you moved
on to where you're okay with digital reading. I'm I'm mainly a hold of
book person a case only. I'll read something online or on ebooks or you
know, I do emails and stuff, but I for the most part,
I want to hold the book. I want I want to. I have
a copy of host Marble Paul right here in front of me, and it's
it's still a joy. It's still a thrill. It's just a cool thing
to me. I'm lucky I grew up in a small town and a blessing
for me is I still see the world through the eye. So that's the
kid in that small town. I'm like, this is cool. I'm doing
radio. I'm on radio today. Yay. I wrote a book. Yay.
That's fun. Uh yeah, well, and let's you know, I
know we're talking about Holmes, Marple and Poe, now available by James Patterson.
I'll have all the links up and I will be reading this. I
promise you that. But I'm just you know, I love your your foray
into children's books. I love that you love animals. I'm a huge uh
animal advocate here in our state. And I love your your your writing for
children. And where how do you switch that? Like? What's that which
where? Okay, there's not a murder scene. This is a child's book.
Thinking about the kids. Books that I do, most of them are
are are humorous. So that's that's it. That's the cool change. And
to be able to write, you know, life funny or something. If
it's serious it is called life funny. You better better be moderately funny.
There are middle school is the worst years of my life, which is funny
title. So you know, I have a few more going. We have
one time travel twins. I think it's this year for kids. So that's
that's very funny too. So that's a nice thing for me to be able
to do some comedy. You know. I look at reading, and I
look at the way we are now, and I do. I go to
schools often and I do some reading, and I love to see the I
want to give a real nice, big props to our teachers here in Connecticut
and New England because the schools that I'm going to even making it more important
for reading now and holding books and I'm still doing that in the classrooms at
a young age. You know, obviously, this is your life, this
is what you've You've built your your career and your passion on and reading and
being an author. But just how important you was reading growing up? It
wasn't Weirdly, my mother was a teacher, and you know what it is.
And this is I think also important a lot of places, the schools,
the school boards, whatever. If the objective is to get kids reading,
if that's the objective, okay, and it's it's a noble objective,
then don't give them books that they're not going to like. And that doesn't
mean dumb down. That just means good stories. There are a lot of
really really good books, really useful, very valuable books that have stories.
But if you give books, kids a lot of books that they're just going
to I hated, I didn't really like it. That's it just defeats the
purposes. No so, And that's a little what happened to me in Catholic
school growing up. And then you know, weirdly I was I worked my
way through college at a mental hospital and in Lexington, man or not Lexington,
in Belmont, and I started reading like a crazy person during those years.
I mean we went to Cambridge three or four times a week and just
pick up books. It was all serious stuff. But that that really just
turned me on. But but if you want to turn kids off, just
keep school boards, keep giving them books that they go I hate it.
That'll that'll stop them from reading. And it's so stupid. It's just you
just want to go and shake these people a little bit. Now I'm gonna
I know, I don't have a lot of time with you, and I'm
getting I know I'm gonna have to wrap soon. But I do want to
go back to homes marble and post I think we actually have to wrap because
I'm heading out west now. I want the next one. No, listen,
I appreciate you, and I can't wait to chat again, and I
can't wait to read Holmes Marble. And thank you, thank you, thank
you, Renee, Bye bye