Richard North Patterson

RICHARD PATTERSON NORTH

Mystery Guild caught up with Richard North Patterson recently and got the low- down on his Dark Lady leading lady, Stella Marz. "Stella was a secondary character in Silent Witness and she did this nasty cross-examine of the ultimately guilty client. And she kept knocking on my psychic door saying, 'I do deserve a bigger part'...So, I really dug in. I really learned a lot of things about her that I didn't have to know the first time around."

Obviously, the challenge of creating a powerful female protagonist was one he relished. "I think we've been immensely assisted by the women's movement...I really remember it from the late '60s particularly, suddenly there was this impetus for men and women to talk to each other more honestly. Whether it be sex or career or family or marriage. As a result of which the world of men and women, I think, is more accessible to each other...Men and women have friendships that they didn't really have." One of the women Patterson talks to most, of course, is his wife, Laurie. "Every day when I get through with work at about five o'clock, I'll come down, make a martini and I'll bring the pages down like a cat with a bird and say, 'Laurie, well, what do you think?' And, generally, she is approving, but the times when she isn't, which are rare, but important, are typically about some behavior that she doesn't really think makes sense. And she's always right." When asked about genre labeling, Patterson went on to say, "From time to time, I object to the use of the word 'thriller'...because I just don't think that's what I'm doing. Suspense, sure. But, I mean, I care a lot about the character and the setting and those things...I think that's what people read me for. There's obviously no market research on our business; so, mine is when I'm in bookstores and giving talks; I get comments from readers, [and] a lot of it is about character. I think if you can write a character in such a way that their psyche and personality...act on each other...that's best. Because then the story has so much more weight than just, well...this happened and this happened and this happened..."

Asked if he could remember when he decided to become an author, Patterson had crystal-clear recall. "I can remember the minute I decided I was going to write a book, or try to. I was doing commercial litigation; so I was flying all over the country. And about the third week of this absolutely absurd business trip of just compulsory nonsense mandated by a federal judge who didn't have a clue what he ordered us to do, I get in the car and I looked at my 1-year-old son who was leaning through the screen of the front door. And I thought, What the hell am I doing leaving home again?"