Someone is making a real killing on the housing market - Bestselling mystery author Nora Bannister has found herself a very lucrative sideline. Along with a group of female friends, she buys a run-down house in Los Angeles, and while her business partners turn it into a show home, Nora makes it the scene of a grisly murder in her latest bestseller. It seems people are only too happy to live in a house where someone has died a violent death - in fiction, at least. But, much to the horror of Nora and her pals, a series of real murders start taking place - Detectives Mike Lomax and Terry Biggs have to track down the killer before he murders his next logical target - Marilyn, Terry's wife.
I worked in the ad business with James Patterson. I worked in TV with George Clooney, Connie Sellecca, Cuba Gooding Jr and Jane Curtin. My movie was directed by Jason Alexander and starred Ryan Merriman, Patti LuPone and Gretchen Mol. My play has been produced in 700 theatres around the world. I worked for ad agencies, networks, TV and movie studios and in 1995 opened my own internet advertising agency and sold it in 1999. Are you getting the picture? I'm totally incapable of holding a job.
So what does a writer do when he's expolored every arena from writing the labels on tuna fish cans (an early career high) to stage, screen, television and websites? Duh. Books. Technically, at this point it's singular. Book. Murder mysteries are my favorite stuff to read and since I spent enough time in Hollywood to want to kill a lot of people, I decided it would be fun to kill them without having to go to prison. Just book tours, where I don't have to spend quite as much time in solitary confinement.
I'm not capable of writing a novel for readers who get wrapped up in the gore of the crime or the minutiae of the forensics. My stronger suit I've learned over my checkered careers is to create people that people want to spend time with. So I came up with Mike Lomax and Terry Biggs. I wanted them to be three dimensional characters with real lives, genuine sensibilities, visible warts and great senses of humor. My first shot was The Rabbit Factory, and if I can believe the reader mail, most of the reviews, and my lying agent, it came out pretty good. So Lomax and Biggs are going to become a series. Which means I'm going to be murdering a lot more people in Hollywood. At last, a career I'm not going to get bored with.
Still want more about my life? I go on ad nauseum at www.lomaxandbiggs.com.
