Diary Exclusive: Lunch with the Queen of Crime

TOP CRIME WRITER Kathy Reichs may be battling tough competition for the top spot in the bestsellers list, but there’s at least one superstar author who is much more of a friend than a rival: horror writer Stephen King.
    “He sent me a message from Australia to tell me I was number one in the Australian bestseller list,” the new queen of crime writers told me this week.

   Despite his reputation for being the master of gore, King is a sociable individual with a good network of author friends.
    And the redoubtable Ms Reichs, although a familiar name at the upper reaches of the bestseller charts, clearly still enjoys the thrill of seeing her books get to the top. It’s been just ten years since the Chicago native (pictured above with yours truly in a sun-drenched restaurant at the Viceroy Bali) wrote her first book, but she’s established a remarkable record of hits.
    She’s on her eleventh mystery starring bone-expert Temperance Brennan, and told me that she’s contracted to do a total of 14 volumes – so there’s three years left, since she does one a year.
    But now the series has hit the screen (the TV version is simply called “Bones”), the character looks set to run indefinitely, in shorter, sharper tales.
     “I’m going to be writing one of the episodes myself,” she said, her excitement clear in her voice.
    The thing that has most intrigued me and other literary commentators about this author is the way her life is intermingled with her fiction. I didn’t realize quite the depth of this overlap until I had lunch with her on Sunday.
     In real life, Kathy Reichs (pronounced “Rikes”) is a forensic anthropologist who writes novels about a woman called Temperance Brennan. In the TV version, the main character is a woman called Temperance Brennan who writes novels about a forensic anthropologist called Kathy Reichs.
     The fictional character is a mature but slim and attractive fair-haired woman with a sharp tongue – and so is the woman with whom I am dining. Is this Kathy? Or is it Dr Brennan?
     The level of overlap even stretches as far as their pets. If you’ve ever wondered why the investigator in this book series has oddly named pets – a cat named Birdy and a dog named Boyd – those were the real names of her family’s pets.
     Ms Reichs turns out to be a great lunch companion. Despite being exhausted from three weeks of book signings, she’s a great conversationalist and full of good stories.
     The inevitable comparisons with author Patricia Cornwell and her Kay Scarpetta forensic detective series crop up during a morning theatre-style public session on crime writing at which the two of us appeared, but she was happy to dispel them, feeling that her character and her writing differ considerably from those of her rival. Interestingly, the two authors have never met.
     But Kathy Reichs puts a lot of emphasis on authenticity, and thus her on-going work as a forensic expert and her habit of basing books on her real-life cases does give her the edge in some readers’ eyes.
      But there was one question I had been dying to ask her. In the novels, the character she has based on herself juggles two gorgeous men, both of whom clearly adore her. In real life, does the author similarly have two hunky men on a string?
      “Now that bit exists only in the fiction,” she said with a smile.
       Bones to Ashes by Kathy Reichs is currently hovering close to the top of the New York Times bestseller list.
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THE DAY THAT OJ Simpson’s new book If I Did It was published was the day the news broke internationally that he had been detained for armed robbery, kidnapping and assault. Now that’s what I call an author who knows how to get attention for his book.

Comments

[catterpillarboy]

Wow...whilst I have not read any of Kathy Reichs' books I ah a huge fan of the show Bones (despite being disappointed that it was not about Dr. McCoy- OMIGOD- I may be a geek!) and I am happy to hear that she will be penning an episode....by the way, now that the two of you have met, is there any chance of a cranky old Asian dude who specializes in eastern interior decorating techniques showing up on the show or in one of her books (I should really stop being such a geek)...Quick Question- as one of the most given tips to wannabe writers is write what you know- did Ms. Reichs give any insights on how many takes it took to transfer the details of her day job into her more creative job?

[Nury]

Thanks for your note, Catterpillarboy. It seems to me that if you have an extraordinary job -- such as examining the bones of murder victims -- then it is not such a big leap to learning the skills of writing so that you can turn your life into a novel. So much harder for people who work as clerks in a tax office, for example, or kindergarten teachers! She told me that while she writes one book a year now, the first book took much longer, and people would tease her: "Oh, mom's upstairs working on her 'novel'," -- and then when it was a mega-hit no one teased her any more.
So what do you do? Do you have an interesting sexy job?

[Paris Hilton]

I hear the dude's a civil servant...and oh, wow...civil servants are like so hawt...