20/20

By Cornelia

Here are twenty questions to get your day started right. My mom learned these while working as a summer camp counselor on Squam Lake in the late Fifties:

1. You have two coins (U.S. currency), the total value of which is fifty-five cents. One of them is not a nickel. What are the two coins?

2. In South Dakota, is it legal for a man to marry his widow's sister?



3. A doctor gives you three pills and tells you to take one every half hour how many minutes will the pills last?



4. Do they have a Fourth of July in England?



5. Some months have thirty one days. How many have twenty eight?

6. You are inside a rectangular house, and all sides have a southern exposure. You look out the window and see a bear walking by. What color is the bear?

7. There are three apples and you take away two. How many apples do you have?



8. How many two-cent stamps are in a dozen?



9. How many birthdays does the average person have?



10. If you had only one match, and entered a dark room containing an oil lamp, some newspaper, and some kindling wood, which would you light first?

11. Imagine you are driving a bus. When you start your trip there are an old lady named Johnson and a long-haired kid on the bus. At the first stop the lady leaves and a businessman enters. At the next stop Frankie, a young boy, enters with his little sister. Then three old ladies who have been shopping in the mall get on. After a short trip the long-haired kid leaves the bus and a man and lady enter. Paul with his dog Blue gets on, while Frankie and his sister get off, and, finally, the bus arrives at the bus station. What is the name of the bus driver?



12. If Mr Smith's peacock lays an egg in Mr Jones' yard, who owns the egg?



13. What was the (American) President's name in 1960?

14. An electric train is moving north at 100kph and a wind is blowing to the west at 10kph. Which way does the smoke blow?

15. How many animals of each sex did Moses take with him on the ark?



16. How much dirt is there in a hole 3 ft deep, 6 ft long and 4 ft wide?

17. In a large western city, 80% of the phone numbers are listed, 20% of the phone numbers are businesses, and 20% of the phone numbers start with the numeral "2". If you were to take a random sample of 1000 phone numbers from the city's phone book, how many numbers would you expect to be unlisted, non-business phone numbers that start with a numeral other than "2"?


18. How far can a dog run into the woods?



19. A woman gives a beggar 50 cents; the woman is the beggar's sister, but the beggar is not the woman's brother, how come?



20. There is a horse tied to a rope. The rope is 10 feet long. There is a bale of hay 23 feet in front of the horse. The horse is able to eat the hay, yet does not break the rope. How is that possible?

Here's a bonus question:

21. A man walks into a train station in London. A cat sits on the ledge just outside the ticket window.



The man looks askes the ticket seller, "Manx cat?"

The ticket seller shakes his head and says, "No. 9:42 express."

Explain his answer.

Left-Coast Levine Strikes Out in NYC

By Paul

I can't compete with Cornelia ("World's Greater Blogger") Read's minute-by-minute account of the Edgar Awards. She goes to more parties than I do, and her memory is far better than mine.

I used the trip east to see my agent and editor and hold a family reunion of sorts. My son Mike, a sportscaster in Michigan, flew to New York. My daughter Wendy, an author and P.R. executive, works in the city. Along with Wendy's husband (another Mike), we caught Liev Schreiber's molten-hot performance in "Talk Radio."

My mother, who recently turned 90, called from Ft. Lauderdale and said, "Since you're in the neighborhood, are you coming to see me?"

Well, who could say no? I caught a flight from Newark to Miami and spent a few days with Mom, instead of the Los Angeles Times Book Festival.

>At the Edgars, I caught up with old pals Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson, who roasted Stephen King, this year's Grand Master.

DAVE BARRY, RIDLEY PEARSON, PAUL AND MIKE LEVINE

As for the awards banquet, well the chocolate desserts were fine. My friend Naomi Hirahara took home the statue for best paperback original for "The Snakeskin Shamisen," while I took home the flower arrangement. I very much admire Naomi's work. Only yesterday, I read her short story "Number 19," in the newly published "Los Angeles Noir." It's a quirky tale set in a Koreatown massage parlor. (I recommend it highly to Jim Born, who's an old hand where massage parlors are concerned). Here's a shot of the irrepressible (and partially dressed) Lisa Scottoline congratulating Naomi while I grind my teeth somewhere off-camera.


BEATEN BUT UNBOWED

Okay, so "The Deep Blue Alibi" didn't win an Edgar. But it's also nominated for a "Thriller Award" by the International Thriller Writers, Inc. The four-day Thrillerfest extravaganza is another New York event, this one in July.

My competition there includes "An Unquiet Grave," written by my old Florida friend Kris Montee, who writes with her sister Kelly as "P.J. Parrish." Here I am with Kris before the Edgar winners are announced. Notice I am still smiling.

Unlike Naomi, Kris and Kelly have not challenged me to a mud-wrestling match, but if they do, I will recruit Jim Born, who is trained in the martial arts, as we know from last week's training photos in which he seemed to be wearing a gigantic rubber jockstrap.

I could be wrong, and if I am, someone will correct me, but I think "The Deep Blue Alibi" is the only book in any category to be nominated for both an Edgar and a Thriller.

I leave you now with one final image: Kris Montee's shoes at the Edgars Banquet. If you ask me, she deserves a Thriller Award on this ground alone.


Paul

Deep in the Heart of . . . Research

from James Grippando

I like research. In fact, it’s one of the things I enjoy most about being a novelist.

Okay, before you go off branding me as a nerd, hear me out. I get to pick any topic I want—astronomy, food, sex, whatever. I get to research it as long as I want and as thoroughly as I want. And when I get tired of researching, I just stop and make things up. That’s what I call research, and what’s not to love?

Last weekend I was in Jacksonville, Florida for a terrific festival called Much Ado About Books. The roster of authors in town for this event was amazing: Lee Child, Sandra Brown, Steve Berry, Joseph Finder, Brad Meltzer, Lisa Jackson, Diane Vogt, just to name a few. One of the questions I got from the audience was “How do you do your research?” I could tell the woman who asked it was an aspiring writer. She had a pen and paper with her and was ready to write down my answer, which always makes me nervous. The thought of someone taking my answer as gospel is a scary proposition. Trying to sound smart, I started blabbering about how you ask this person and that person if they know anybody who knows so and so—sort of the six degrees of separation approach to research. She looked really puzzled, and I knew I had flubbed it.

Afterward, I went to see a panel with Lee Child and Steve Berry. Someone in the audience (maybe the same woman) asked Lee the same question. His answer rang so true: I’m always doing research. He gave an example. He went outside for a smoke before the panel began and saw a U-Haul truck parked at the curb. He was thinking about a scene involving a U-Haul truck in a future novel, so he just walked over and started making mental note of the markings and other things that defined the truck. Research.

Lee's answer made me realize that I do the same thing. My least productive research happens when I identify a specific person to interview and hit him or her with my prepared list of questions. That kind of approach is rarely effective. The best research is when I put myself in a setting, observe, and follow my nose. That’s where all the little gems rise to the surface.

Come to think about it, the same held true when I was a trial lawyer. One of my first cases was for Tanqueray Gin. You know the squat green bottle with the distinctive short neck. A barmaid picked up the bottle by the short neck, and it snapped off in her hand, severing the tendons in her fingers. She sued Tanqueray, claiming that its signature look—the short neck—was a defective design. Now, Tanqueray had a LOT invested in the recognizable shape of its bottle, so they were fighting this to the end. I was sent over to the bar one day with a photographer just to get some photographs of what the bar looked like—basic trial exhibits, nothing that could win or lose the case.

Well, it was my lucky day. They happened to be stocking the bar that morning. Simply by observing, I discovered that the way they did this was to wheel a shopping cart into the stock room, throw all the replacement bottles into the shopping cart, and then wheel the cart out to the bar. As you might imagine, loosely stacked bottles have a tendency to break or crack when tossed around in this fashion. I saw the cart coming and grabbed the photographer. I swear this was not staged: Sitting on top of the pile, upside down and wedged between two other bottles, was a bottle of Tanqueray Gin. The photograph snapped the photo. End of case.

I had a similar experience just this past week doing research for my next novel. The lead character is a former baseball player for the University of Texas. Texas, you may know, is a college baseball powerhouse. Its coach, Augie Garrido, is the winningest coach in college baseball history—and Augie earned that distinction by breaking the record that had been set by his predecessor at Texas. I spent an afternoon touring the baseball facility, meeting the team manager, and getting “behind the scenes.” I had no prepared questions, no idea what I was even looking for. As Lee Child would say, I was just observing. It’s just amazing what you find when you’re really not looking for anything in particular.

I’m not going to share everything—not now, anyway—but one of the coolest sights was on Comal Street, which is where a ball lands if the batter hits a homerun out of the stadium to right field. There is a row of brightly painted buses parked on the street. The buses never move. They are permanent fixtures, and there are seats welded on top the buses. Students watch the ballgames from up there. Doesn’t that just sort of some up the personality of college baseball?

There was plenty more in Austin that may or may not make the book, from the famous Texas Tower that lights up in orange whenever the team wins, to the bullet holes that are the scars left behind by a sniper who climbed the tower on August 1, 1966 and murdered fourteen students. Austin is a beautiful city, and one of the most enjoyable research trips I’ve had in a long time. If you go, have a breakfast taco at "Juan in a Million" on the poor side of town, catch a ballgame at Disch-Falk Field, and then head over to the bars on Sixth Street and have a “body shot” at Coyote Ugly. Research. Gotta love it.

P.S. Patty will be back next Monday.

My Octopus

My Octopus

from Jacqueline
(written on Wednesday)

“The family, that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape, nor in our innermost hearts never quite wish to.” Dodie Smith

Some weeks are ordinary weeks, when we amble or scramble through our days according to whatever it is we’re supposed to be doing. Then there are times of worry, concern, or joy and expectation, and some weeks you get a little of everything, and your family will loom large in all that happens. I’ve been thinking of family a lot lately, about that many-limbed creature Dodie Smith (yes, the 101 Dalmatians creator) wrote about in her play, “Dear Octopus.” I come from a large extended family, due mainly to my mother’s mother, who had ten children. My people are all over the world now, cousins here, there and everywhere. Cousin John is publisher of a newspaper in Australia, and about a year ago didn’t even know his own paper had carried a review of one of my books – won’t let him forget that in a hurry. But back to my Octopus.



My parents arrive from the UK today. This is a big deal, because fifteen months ago my mother had a minor stroke – minor, but big enough to cause a heap of problems. (And would you believe, she emailed me because she didn’t want to wake me in the middle of the night. I flicked on my email in the morning and received a message that read, “Have had minor stroke. Don’t worry, am being taken to the hospital. Don’t leave a message on the machine, because your father always manages to erase them.”) Anyway, having hardly ever even taken an aspirin in her life, she was prescribed a cocktail of statins, blood-thinners and other heart-related thingummys, and she took it as a personal affront to her well-being and reputation for good health. Much to the chagrin of our family, she has argued with doctors for the past year, flashing any old newspaper report with a story along the lines of, “Statins kill – new research stymies doctors.” Or “Warfarin – the truth you should know.” And she was not allowed to fly, which is why I have been to the UK five times since she had her stroke. But she did laugh when I said something about confiscating the broomstick. Finally the doctors gave her the go-ahead to travel, so she and Dad arrive today. And I am beside myself with worry, even though I’ve made sure they upgraded to wider seats to avoid cramping, and she’s promised to walk up and down the aisles every twenty-five minutes. It’s an eleven hour flight – she will have lost ten pounds by the time they arrive.



And my brother was supposed to pick them up from the airport, because I’m leaving the house at 4:30am to travel to Washington on Thursday morning for Malice Domestic (see you there, Patty – mine’s a G&T, and I’ll need it!). But we know what happens to best laid plans. My brother’s dog was bitten by a black widow spider yesterday, and John spent six hours with Quincy at the vet’s office, sitting on the floor and stroking his dog’s head, while they gave the poor pooch antibiotics and anti-toxins and put him on an IV. I saw them both last night, and am not sure who looked worse – John or Quincy. That poor German Shepherd brings new meaning to the word, “Sick as a dog.” So, I’ll be at LAX to pick up my parents, late, and then will take them over to my brother’s house. Yes, some tentacles are close – he lives just around the corner from me. I’m sure he thinks it’s way too neighborly for comfort.



And then there was the good news this week, the lovely news, that my cousin, Fritha - who has known such sadness in her life, especially when her Mum passed away about eleven years ago at the age of 41, just after Fritha went away to university – had given birth to a baby girl. Ottalie May weighed in at 7lb 2oz, and gave us all a bit to worry about when mother and baby had to remain in the hospital for what were described as “a few problems.” But they are home now, safe and well, and Fritha and her partner, Richard, are overjoyed with their lovely daughter. The photo proves my thesis that all newborns have more than a passing resemblance to Winston Churchill – but we all think Ottalie's utterly gorgeous.



So, that’s my family this week. My dear octopus. We may moan about our octopus at times, we wonder what the younger ones are up to, and about the more senior tentacles, how they are faring. We weather our storms, pray through our losses and celebrate our joys, which may be as simple as seeing a son at a ballgame, or as grand as a daughter married (or the other way around). We visit hospitals and graduations, we welcome newborns, boyfriends, fiancées and fiancés (not necessarily in that order), and we go on, always attached, even when we wish we weren’t. And remember it’s also true, that family doesn’t always mean you have the same blood running through your veins. My best-friend’s daughter, my God-daughter, is like my own. I’ve just booked my flight to go to her wedding, and even though I do not really suit the color green, she has asked me to wear green because all the family are going for green in honor of her husband to be, who will be wearing his green kilt when they are married in August and he becomes part of their family. Oh, the things you do for your octopus.



Have a lovely weekend. Talk to your Octopus. Tickle a tentacle now and then, and remember that, for better or worse, you are joined.

Crime Fiction or Science Fiction?

Crime fiction writers depend on information from cops to make their stories plausible and realistic. This may be true but movies and books also affect how cops act. In my case movies have affected me in a different way. The last crime movie I watched was Mystic River by Dennis Lehane. I liked it on a number of levels. Professionally, emotionally and the confused Karmic injustice. I’m not saying realism is paramount to making me like a book or movie. Story and characters are the key but sometimes I get frustrated when an author thinks that TV provides all the insight into the world of crime that they need too write a book.

Some of the crime fiction books out there should, more accurately, be classified as Science Fiction. Here are a few simple clues to decide if what you’re watching or reading is crime fiction of science fiction.

If a cat solves the crime it is science fiction. I don’t know what your experience with cats is but in my world my kids ignore them, I feed them and they sleep like twenty-two hours a day. My cats never really struck me as ambitious enough to solve a crime. In one book a cat fires a pistol. How is that possible? They don’t even have opposable thumbs. If you’re reading a book where a cat does anything more than provide companionship it’s science fiction.






If a character in a book or movie can shoot or fight without ever practicing, it is science fiction. James Bond is a great character. I love Bond movies. The real Bond. This guy, not the others. They are purely science fiction. I don’t think I need to argue the Bond point but sometimes I read about these cops who twist guns out of people’s hands on a regular basis while working eighty hours a week, raising kids, staying married and still having enough time to eat. In the real world very few cops study any martial art. They get some simple training from their agency and a refresher once a year. Maybe. The cops who do attend their own karate classes are the ones who realize they don’t want to have anything to do with close combat if they can avoid it. A cop may, in fact, twist a gun out of someone’s hand in real
life. Once. It does take speed but it takes a lot of luck too. Plus the opportunity. Most cops never have a gun pointed at the from arm’s distance. Believe me, it’s easier to shoot from cover and wait for help.

If a character in a book uses the phrase, “Bring him in alive,” the book is science fiction. Unless it’s set pre 1970. Today the goal of every manhunt or arrest is bring everyone back alive. Unless that’s not feasible. If a bad guy is threat to the cop or someone else’s life then deadly forced may be used. If, for whatever reason, no one wants to bring the criminal in alive then that is left unsaid. But no cop will risk his life because the guy that is being arrested might have important information. If they pull a weapon and the cop has no choice. He won’t be brought in alive.

The last thing, and I admit this is a personal issue but true none the less. If someone in a book or movie racks the slide of an automatic pistol just before going into action, that is the dumbest cop or criminal in the country. Today’s semi-automatic pistols are designed to carry a round in the chamber ready to go. If someone is racking the gun that means they were walking around with a useless weapon. If they know enough to pull the slide back to charge the weapon then they will do it as soon as they are ready to stick the gun in a holster. This one tactic is science fiction because I refuse to believe any cop is really that stupid in real life.

Now let me say there is nothing wrong with science fiction or horror for that matter. Horror movies have influenced me as much as crime fiction. I won’t go into a dark attic first. Even armed. I run at the sound of a growl no matter how much firepower I’m carrying. And if some old lady says she'll put a curse on me if I arrest her, she’s pretty much free to go.

But that’s just me.

L is for Loser

By Cornelia

This past week has been SO much fun, but OMG I am SO tired in its aftermath.... I got to see lots and lots of pals in NYC and LA, of the mystery persuasion and otherwise, and would like to resort to the bullet-point format used so well by Sarah Weinman and Olen Steinhauer as they recapped the events of Edgars week and beyond:

• I landed at JFK last Tuesday around 4:30 p.m. after two hours sleep the night before and ended up driving into the city with a kind of bizarre gypsy cab dude because I had to meet awesomely wonderful freshman-year dorm mates David Hutchinson and Christine Aebi at my hotel before the three of us sprinted uptown to make the Black Orchid party.

• The Black Orchid party ROCKED... so many great people milling around outside the store on a gorgeous evening. Got to hang with Sarah and Declan Hughes and Twist Phelan and Marshall Karp & his terrific wife Emily and the wonderful Bonnie & Joe at long last along with these REALLY cool women from Library Journal, and then bum a smoke from bad influence Lee Child and just chatter and drink beer and be excited about EVERYTHING, plus to top it off the very kind Laurie R. King told me she likes our blog, which left me looking I'm sure like a stunned mullet, whereupon I stammered, "Um, I like YOUR blog! Wow... um... wow..." etc.
  
• Rae came in on the redeye the next morning and hung out for a bit before her schmancy room was ready a few blocks uptown, and she called from Starbucks to ask what Heidi Roosa and I wanted in the way of caffeinated beverages, and a good time was had by all.
• 
• Got taken to beautiful lunch by Les Pockell and Celia Johnson and Susan Richman from Grand Central Publishing, who are great fun to hang out with ALWAYS, and then did a quick tour of their soon-to-be-former offices in the Time-Life building, all packed up for their move to new digs last weekend. Being there always reminds me of the two weeks of temp fact-checking I did for Martha Stewart, many moons ago.
• Scored a copy of Nelson DeMille's latest and an old paperback of Leonard Nimoy's I Am Spock, which I hope to mail to Joshilyn Jackson because she has a bit of a Vulcan fetish goin' on. Everyone at GCP loves Joshilyn, and rightly so. Becca in sub rights said she was describing The Girl Who Stopped Swimming, Joss's forthcoming third novel, to a French editor at a recent book fair and they both got all teared up and sniffly just talking about it, because it is THAT GOOD...
• Played Scrabble with David and Christine for the afternoon. David kicked our butts.
• Met up with Chris Mooney and Maggie Griffin and Lee C and Rae for dinner, which was awesome and included lots of little shellfish and crustaceans giving their all for my delectation. Plus rum. YAY!!
• My sister Freya arrives by redeye Thursday morning, much in need of a nap. Heidi Roosa and I go downstairs for the awesome breakfast buffet at the Warwick, whereupon I eat roughly five kilos of smoked salmon.
• Sharon and Karen and Daisy and Juliann from writing group arrive, and we all go to the Carnegie Deli for lunch. More kilos of smoked salmon... tons of iced coffee... we are at a tiny back table in its own room surrounded by photos of such luminaries as Judge Ito and Olivia Newton-John. We all laughed so much I think we kind of freaked out our waiter.
• 
• 
  
• Freya and I begin the massive undertaking of getting me into my white tie rig for the evening around 3... the shirt alone has a printed eight-step set of directions. Freya is in her "wetsuit" dress and looks awesome. Heidi in chic black suit. We set off for "pre-pre-function" drinking at Rae's schmancy digs, armed with bottle of Veuve Clicquot.

• Rae has apparently gathered the entire Clicquot family in her room, along with plates of lamb shanks and amazing other offerings for our gustatory salvation. Maggie and Lee and Sarah and Sharon and Karen and Daisy and Juliann and me and Frey start in on the Veuve, which Rae is pouring SO fast, and we all laugh so much I think we scare Lee a little.

• Freya and I book down to the Grand Hyatt for the pre-function drinking already feeling rather hammered. We see a Baldwin in the revolving door on our way in, then Naomi Hirahara in the elevator, who is wonderful.

• Here is Sharon with the poster of Best First nominees:

• 

• Here is (left to right) Heidi, Karen, Juliann, and Daisy at the Grand Hyatt:

• So at the pre-cocktail cocktails, I got to tell Alex Berenson that if I was going to lose, I would like to lose to him. Prescient of me.... Here's him and me and Steve Hockensmith (left to right):

• 
• Here are the Best PBO nominees, including our very handsome Paulie in the upper right... It was so great to see him there!
  

• Freya introduced herself to Nelson DeMille as "Freya Read, former vice commodore of the Seawanhaka Corinthian Junior Yacht Club..." because we are such huge fans of Gold Coast. He was very nice to us and his fiancee is lovely.
  

• Here is my "Post-Edgar Doggerel" recap of what followed:
  

Coben and Mooney: very tall,
Otto Penzler not at all.
Bowen's elegant in white,
Barry Eisler stops a fight.

Hockensmith arrives all swanky,
While Child, per usual, is lanky.
Sarah Weinman sparkles plenty,
DeMille's next wife looks under twenty.

Bat-Signal cufflinks on Maleeney,
The PowerPoints are pure Fellini.
Roker breaks a statuette
While King debunks the lit-crit set.

Best novel's publisher is cheap--
Left her author home asleep.
Edgar won't ride home with me,
But I scored a free trip to NYC.

• And then I lost to Berenson:

• On the right is another loser of the evening (best screenplay for Casino Royale) whom we ended up hanging out with in the bar. His name is Rob Wade and he has a really cool Aussie wife from whom Freya and I bummed more cigarettes:
  

• A highlight of the evening was having Karin Slaughter give me a friendly punch in the arm and say, "hey, you big fat loser..." which she made sound totally charming.
• Here are Olen Steinhauer and Denise Mina, speaking of fellow losers. They are great:
  

• We ended up closing down the bar with a bunch of Dutch dentists. Freya bonded with Barry Eisler. We got back to our hotel room at 3 or something, and I had a 6:30 a.m. wakeup call to fly to LA. Painful.
• Went to Mystery Bookstore party that night in Westwood, and got to hang out with Linda and Bobby, Mr. Crais, Rob Gregory Browne and Brett Battles, Megan Abbott, Victor Gischler sans ponytail, Denise Hamilton, and a cavalcade of cool people. Also tried to sit at Paco Taibo's feet on the sidewalk outside the store, but my friend Hillary Huber forbade me since I was wearing white pants.
• Hillary pointed out to me after the party that everyone I said hello to I immediately told "Oh my GOD, I am SO hungover...." I said, "yes, but we are mystery writers so I think that was okay." She is most excellent, and was the brilliant reader of the audio book of Field. She got nominated for an Audie award and I hope she wins it....
  
• The LA Times Book Festival is huge and wonderful and there are like a hundred thousand some odd attendees, but it is humbling after Edgars week because most of them are there to see Dr. Phil and Gore Vidal and stuff. Got to sign at the Mysterious Galaxy and Mystery Bookstore booths--all of four copies sold, but hey.
• 
• Two people took my picture and put it on their blogs. I will not name names since I look like a crazed hungover Bulgarian mechanic lady in them, I think.
  
• Monday night, Cara Black and I did a joint talk for the Signal Hill Friends of the Libary, outside Long Beach. They were lovely and had really great cookies and gave us huge bouquets of roses. I gave mine to the TSA lady at LAX, who was very pleased and said she'd never received flowers at work before.
• The Bay Bridge was broken,
  

and Cara and her husband drove me all the way to Berkeley because they are awesome. Got to bed at two. Woken up by child at three. I am still a little spacey....

IT WAS ALL SO FUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lying Around

From James

Lying with Strangers is being released in hardcover this month. My publisher tells me the pub date is May 15. Amazon says it’s May 1. I’m going with Amazon. Computers are never wrong.

The idea for Lying with Strangers goes back a ways. In 1998, my son spent the first eight days of his life in the hospital’s neo-natal intensive care unit. Each day, my wife and I would visit him in that darkened room, reach inside the incubator, and touch his little hands and face. When we finally left the hospital, I told Ryan’s doctors and nurses that they were my personal heroes.
What I didn’t tell them—and what I didn’t realize until some time later—was that I desperately wanted to write about them.

We had to closely monitor Ryan’s condition after he came home. Luckily, I had a friend whose twin brother had graduated at the top of his class from Harvard Medical School and who had just been named Chief Resident at Boston Children’s Hospital. Dr. David Weinstein was in the most coveted position at the best pediatric hospital in the world, but he always found time to take my calls. Lucky for me we really hit it off. During one of our conversations, I told him—only half-jokingly—that I ought to write a novel about a pediatrician. Later, he phoned and said, “Why don’t you come up to Boston Children’s and shadow me, see what hits you?”

I couldn’t get there fast enough.

One morning during my stay at his house, David told me about another pediatric intern—a brilliant and beautiful young woman who had been stalked by a patient’s relative. A light immediately went on, and Peyton Shields, the lead character in Lying with Strangers, was born. I realized, however, that I was building quite a challenge for myself. My editor and I were about to launch a series for HarperCollins featuring Jack Swyteck—a man who is a lawyer in Miami. The story in my head was about a woman who was a doctor in Boston. We went with the Swyteck series—the right decision—but Peyton Shields was never far behind in my heart and mind.

It took years to finish Lying with Strangers. First, there was the medical research, then the Boston research. But creating Peyton—and finding a woman’s voice—was the real challenge. It helped that I’m married to an English Literature major. Even so, I can still see Tiffany looking up from the early manuscript, rolling her eyes, and telling me, “A woman would never say that!” Now, the feedback from women readers is glowing. And men love it, too. That’s hugely gratifying.

As a footnote I would add that Dr. Weinstein is now at the University of Florida, which has given him the opportunity to create and direct the ideal program for children with glycogen storage disease. Dr. Weinstein’s program is now the largest in the world, and the University of Florida has more researchers looking for a cure and new treatments for this rare disease than the rest of the world combined. One of the patients Dr. Weinstein treats is a boy named Jacob Gordon, whose family has provided critical support for the program. In honor of Jacob, and in a show of appreciation to the Gordon family, Dr. Peyton Shields’ favorite patient in Lying with Strangers is named Jacob Gordon.

As a footnote to the footnote (can’t you tell I was once on the Law Review?), both Dr. Weinstein and my son Ryan (now a completely healthy eight-year-old sports nut) are huge Gator fans. In fact Ryan and I went to the Final Four in Atlanta last month to watch the Gators win their second consecutive national title in basketball. Dr. Weinstein watched the game on television . . . and I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to hear that he spent at least part of the game on the telephone, putting another new parent at ease.

P.S. Paul will be back next Tuesday.