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| ISBN-13: | 9780316693325 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Little, Brown and Company |
| Publication date: | 10/28/1998 |
| Pages: | 432 |
| Sales rank: | 119,146 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.20(d) |
| Age Range: | 13 Years |
Hometown:
Palm Beach, FloridaDate of Birth:
March 22, 1947Place of Birth:
Newburgh, New YorkEducation:
B.A., Manhattan College, 1969; M.A., Vanderbilt University, 1971Website:
http://www.jamespatterson.com
PROLOGUE:
FIRST FLIGHT
I
"SOMEBODY PLEASE help me! Somebody please! Can anybody hear me?"
Max's screams pierced the clear mountain air. Her throat and lungs were beginning to hurt, to burn.
The eleven-year-old girl was running as fast as she could from the hateful, despicable School. She was strong, but she was beginning to tire. As she ran, her long blond hair flared behind her like a beautiful silk scarf. She was pretty, even though there were dark, plum-colored circles under her eyes.
She knew the men were coming to kill her. She could hear them hurrying through the woods behind her.
She glanced over her right shoulder, painfully twisting her neck. She flashed a mental picture of her little brother, Matthew. Where was he? The two of them had separated just outside the School, both running and screaming.
She was afraid Matthew was already dead. Uncle Thomas probably got him. Thomas had betrayed them and that hurt so much she couldn't stand to think about it.
Tears rolled down her cheeks. The hunters were closing in. She could feel their heavy footsteps thumping hard and fast against the crust of the earth.
A throbbing, orange and red ball of sun was sinking below the horizon. Soon it would be pitch-black and cold out here in the Front Range of the Rockies. All she wore was a simple tube of white cotton, sleeveless, loosely drawn together at the neck-line and waist. Her feet were wrapped in thin-soled ballet slippers.
Move. She urged her aching, tired body on. She could go faster than this. She knew she could.
The twisting path narrowed, then wound around a great, mossy-green shoulder of rock. She clawed and struggled forward through more thick tangles of branches and brush.
The girl suddenly stopped. She could go no further.
A huge, high fence loomed above the bushes. It was easily ten feet. Rows of razor-sharp concertina wire were tangled and coiled across the top.
A metal sign warned: EXTREME DANGER! ELECTRIFIED FENCE. EXTREME DANGER!
Max bent over and cupped her hands over her bare knees. She was blowing out air, wheezing hard, trying to keep from weeping.
The hunters were almost there. She could hear, smell, sense their awful presence.
With a sudden flourish, she unfurled her wings. They were white and silver-tipped and appeared to have been unhinged. The wings sailed to a point above her head, seemingly of their own accord. Their span was nine feet. The sun glinted off the full array of her plumage.
Max started to run again, flapping her wings hard and fast. Her slippered feet lifted off the hardscrabble.
She flew over the high barbed wire like a bird.
II
FIVE ARMED MEN ran quietly and easily through the ageless boulders and towering aspens and ponderosa pines. They didn't see her yet, but they knew it wouldn't be long before they caught up with the girl.
They were jogging rapidly, but every so often the man in front picked up the pace a significant notch or two. All of them were competent trackers, good at this, but he was the best, a natural leader. He was more focused, more controlled, the best hunter.
The men appeared calm on the outside, but inside it was a different story. This was a critical time. The girl had to be captured, and brought back. She shouldn't have gotten out here in the first place. Discretion was critical; it always had been, but never more than right now.
The girl was only eleven, but she had "gifts," and that could present a formidable problem outdoors. Her senses were acute; she was incredibly strong for her size, her age, her gender; and of course, there was the possibility that she might try to fly.
Suddenly, they could see her up ahead: she was clearly visible against the deep blue background of the sky.
"Tinkerbell. Northwest, fifty degrees," the group leader called out.
She was called Tinkerbell, but he knew she hated the name. The only name she answered to was Max, which wasn't short for Maxine, or Maximillian, but for Maximum. Maybe because she always gave her all. She always went for it. Just as she was doing right now.
There she was, in all her glory! She was running at full speed, and she was very close to the perimeter fence. She had no way of knowing that. She'd never been this far from home before.
Every eye was on her. None of them could look away, not for an instant. Her long hair streamed behind her, and she seemed to flow up the steep, rocky hillside. She was in great shape; she could really move for such a young girl. She was a force to reckon with out here in the open.
The man running in front suddenly pulled up. Harding Thomas stopped short. He threw up his arm to halt the others. They didn't understand at first, because they thought they had her now.
Then, almost as if he'd known she would -- she took off. She flew. She was going over the concertina wire of the ten-foot-high perimeter fence.
The men watched in complete silence and awe. Their eyes widened. Blood rushed to their brains and made a pounding sound in their ears.
She opened to a full wingspan and the movement seemed effortless. She was a beautiful, natural flyer. She flapped her white and silver wings up and down, up and down. The air actually seemed to carry her along, like a leaf on the wind.
"I knew she'd try to go over." Thomas turned to the others and spit out the words. "Too bad."
He lifted his rifle to his shoulder. The girl was about to disappear over the nearest edge of the canyon wall. Another second or two and she'd be gone from sight.
He pulled the trigger.
III
KIT HARRISON was headed to Denver from Boston. He was good-looking enough to draw looks on the airplane: trim, six foot two, sandy-blond hair. He was a graduate of NYU Law School. And yet he felt like such a loser.
He was perspiring badly in the cramped and claustrophobic middle-aisle airplane seat of an American Airlines 747. He was so obviously pathetic that the pleasant and accommodating flight attendant stopped and asked if he was feeling all right. Was he ill?
Kit told her that he was just fine, but it was another lie, the mother of all lies. His condition was called post-traumatic stress disorder and sometimes featured nasty anxiety attacks that left him feeling he could die right there. He'd been suffering from the disorder for close to four years.
So yeah, I am ill, Madame Flight Attendant. Only it's a little worse than that.
See, I'm not supposed to be going to Colorado. I'm supposed to be on vacation in Nantucket. Actually, I'm supposed to be taking some time off, getting my head screwed on straight, getting used to maybe being fired from my job of twelve years.
Getting used to not being an FBI agent anymore, not being on the fast track at the Bureau, not being much of anything.
The name computer-printed on his plane ticket read Kit Harrison, but it wasn't his real name. His name was Thomas Anthony Brennan. He had been Senior FBI Agent Brennan, a shooting star at one time. He was thirty-eight, and lately, he felt he was feeling his age for the first time in his life.
From this moment on, he would forget the old name. Forget his old job, too.
I'm Kit Harrison. I'm going to Colorado to hunt and fish in the Rockies. I'll keep to that simple story. That simple lie.
Kit, Tom, whoever the hell he was, hadn't been up in an airplane in nearly four years. Not since August 9, 1994. He didn't want to think about that now.
So Kit pretended he was asleep as the sweat continued to trickle down his face and neck, as the fear inside him built way past the danger level. He couldn't get his mind to rest, even for just a few minutes. He had to be on this plane.
He had to travel to Colorado.
It was all connected to August 9, wasn't it? Sure it was. That was when the stress disorder had begun. This was for Kim and for Tommy and for Michael -- little Mike the Tyke.
And oh yeah, it also happened to be hugely beneficial for just about everybody else on the planet. Very strange -- but that last outrageous bit was absolutely true, scarily true. In his opinion, nothing in history was more important than what he'd come here to investigate.
Unless he was crazy.
Which was a distinct possibility.
On Wednesday, October 28, 1998, barnesandnoble.com welcomed James Patterson, author of WHEN THE WIND BLOWS.
James Patterson: I am terrific. We had a signing in New York today and a little TV, and my little eight-month-old boy came to the signing with me, so it was a lot of fun.
James Patterson: I'd had the idea for this book a long long time, and finally it struck me that it was one of those ideas that if someone else wrote it down I would say, "I wish I did that!" So I had to sit down and take a crack at it. After my parents read the manuscript, they told me that when I was little I was on the second floor of a barn and I jumped off and tried to fly like a bird. Of course I didn't fly but crashed to the earth and fortunately didn't break anything.
James Patterson: As I said, it was a challenge writing it. I am just finishing the next Alex Cross book now, so he hasn't been on hold long.
James Patterson: On the top of the outline for WHEN THE WIND BLOWS I put: "Has to be more suspenseful than KISS THE GIRLS." You can be the judge of how successful I was. What I generally write about are nightmares that I have had -- not from when I am asleep but real things I feel about the world. I have a real problem with domineering males. That was the inspiration for KISS AND THE GIRLS and HIDE AND SEEK. The new book cuts both ways: it is about my excitement about what is possible in the future and what would happen if we don't prepare for what could happen. The cool thing about this book for me is that the publisher sent it out to about 7000 booksellers and they got a huge response. The feedback ran 99% positive! (Usually it is around 50%). Almost nobody said, it was "just okay" or "I prefer the Alex Cross series." So the book seems to have worked for an awful lot of people.
James Patterson: That is a little like asking a parent which child he likes best. I like all the Cross books. I very much like WHEN THE WIND BLOWS and THE MIDNIGHT CLUB. I have a sweet spot for THE THOMAS BERRYMAN NUMBER since it was my first book published. KISS THE GIRLS is probably the scariest. WHEN THE WIND BLOWS is the most imaginative. James Patterson meets Stephen King meets Michael Crichton.
James Patterson: I am most interested in joy time with my little boy and my wife. I like to have a life! I kind of aim for one book a year but sometimes I make it two.
James Patterson: I would choose Alex because I know his investigative work a lot better. I have been watching his work for several years! Kit's is not proven to me yet.
James Patterson: There are some scary things in it, but my agent came over on Saturday night and he brought his 14-year-old, who doesn't read too much, and he [the teenager] loved it. It is definitely one that teenagers can read, but it does have some scary parts.
James Patterson: I think that what separates really successful books in this genre is that there are few who can put together a real page-turning plot and characters we care about. Some people plot OK but the reader never gets involved with the characters. Sometimes the story gets flat and I especially don't want go on reading those kinds of books. I try to do both -- fast plot and good characters.
James Patterson: Yes, the first book did get turned down by 30 some publisher, and then when it as published it won an Edgar for best mystery. HIDE AND SEEK also got turned down by many publishers, and that was in the middle. I didn't really know if I would succeed, but I knew I loved to write stories. I hoped that I would get published, but I had no idea.
James Patterson: The influence I guess is that, one, it made me more conscious of my audience for the novels and, two, because I had to go to work in the morning, I didn't have much time to write so I wrote short chapters and then I came to like that form and found it unique. I am glad to get out of the corporate world and felt it was time for a change. I was lucky enough to be able to make one.
James Patterson: Yes, I am just finishing another Alex Cross. The publisher will get the manuscript this Friday, so it is up to them when they get it out.
James Patterson: I am not planning on writing a series following this book, but maybe. It really depends on how I feel after a while. I am thinking about another series, though.
James Patterson: One little exercise I tell people to think about: Take a story you can tell orally and people like to hear, and chances are that it has a good beginning and ending and you have taken out all the extraneous stuff. If I came on TV tonight and said, "I just came home and my wife was brutally murdered on our living-room floor" and then went on the describe my house and living room, I would lose your attention. A lot of writers lose sight of the story and get botched up in sentences and lengthy descriptions when it isn't appropriate. I just try to tell the story.
James Patterson: Thank you, thank you, thank you for the compliments! I think it is absolutely fair to send a bunch of letters out. Try to make sure the query letter is short, to the point, and totally irresistible -- and say it in a couple sentences. They get hundreds of proposals a month, and generally they will follow up on three or four of them. I met Nicholas Sparks, author of THE NOTEBOOK, and he told me that he sent out 25 query letters for that book and he immediately got one response back and he started playing a little hard with the agent because he assumed he would get more back. He didnt! So dont lose heart. If you don't hear anything, write a better letter and send it to the same agents. You just have to be persistent!
James Patterson: ALONG CAME A SPIDER is probably next. Paramount is planing to shoot it in March. Morgan Freeman is attached again. I dont think they are too close to finishing the script though. I am not interested in getting involved in the screen writing. There are too many chefs in Hollywood. It is just too difficult.
James Patterson: It is hard to pick because I think there are a lot of good writers in the genre. I like Patricia Cornwell, Michael Connelly, Dennis Lehane, John Sanford.
James Patterson: Thanks for the compliment. Yes, I do find it much easier. I always want to be there in the background as an author. I think that makes it easier for the reader. When I write in the third person, sometimes I get distanced and I don't like that.
James Patterson: In terms of KISS THE GIRLS, I thought the acting was terrific. Morgan and Ashley Judd did a fine job. I thought the ending was good also. I was disappointed with the villains -- not the acting but the scripting. I think the THE ENGLISH PATIENT carried over well. I tend to like the more literary things, like THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY.
James Patterson: That is a good question and comment about Cross. Lets blame it on the author. [Laughs.] It came too easily at times. I will try to do better in the future. You might have a future as an editor!
James Patterson: All the time! This whole thing with flying -- I would love to lift off. I had to give a speech a few months ago, and I was driving south on the interstate and couldn't take my eyes off this bird. I don't want to be a bird, but I would love to get up there a few hours. In the middle of this book, Max is flying around some skyscrapers, and I think that would be so cool -- to fly around buildings in the city at two in the morning.
James Patterson: How did I find time to do ads! [Laughs.] I just love to write and basically every day of the year I would get up early to write and even weekends. I had to fly frequently for business, so on the plane ride I could tuck myself away and write. Planes were always a great place to get stuff done.
James Patterson: Actually, I think I did. Sampson comes out as Isaiah Parker. Stasovanich -- I am tempted to go back and write another book about him.
James Patterson: Right. I have been using nursery rhymes since ALONG CAME A SPIDER and I think it makes it easier for people to remember it is a Jim Patterson book.
James Patterson: No, not at this stage. I said everything I want to say about advertising.
James Patterson: I talked to a lot of scientists when I was writing the book, and there was a lot of discussion about laboratories and illegality. There is not much regulation in the field. There is not much supervision at all, actually. Yes, outlaw labs do exist, but I don't know if they will be as diabolical as the one in WHEN THE WIND BLOWS. Lets hope not!
James Patterson: I think that it cuts both ways. It is optimistic about the possibilities, and it is also a warning of sorts. When we first started using computers, there were all sort of fears about computers taking over and they mostly turned out to be not justified. We handled it all very well. Of course, you guys are all on computers now [laughs] and I am on the phone. I am sticking with Alexander Graham Bell. I don't compose on the computer, I still write with a pencil.
James Patterson: I am sure Alex would. I am in the middle of one messy investigation now. My family had a huge theft when we moved from New York City, and I can't believe how sloppy the police were. It is just astonishing.
James Patterson: Yes, I have an eight-month-old. I don't think it has changed my perspective other than I think more about how to give him the best possible start I can.
James Patterson: There are so many people. My favorite book of all time is ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE. But I would eat with James Joyce or Shakespeare or Pat Cornwell or Stephen King. I have had dinner with quite a number of writers, and it is fun. I have eaten with Tom Wolfe!
James Patterson: I am definitely changed, for better or worse. I think my storytelling is a lot better but my sentences were better when I as younger. THE THOMAS BERRYMAN NUMBER was better written than any other book but not a great story.
James Patterson: The new Alex Cross hopefully is close to be finished. I have plotted another Cross out, too, and a book in a new series. I am also reworking an old book -- an idea I have had for a long time. I am busy!
James Patterson: I would go to Barnes and Noble [laughs] and get the new Tom Wolfe book. But I tend to read the books I want to. I just got a copy of the new Michael Connelly, which won't be out for months.
James Patterson: As I said before, all of the answers are so simple. I sometimes think about the problem: I see a whole blackboard of equations and then on the other side of the board the answers are so simple. It is just arriving at the right ones; it is conceiving of a great story but telling it very simply.
James Patterson: ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. That is my favorite book.
James Patterson: Always around this time I get interested in the notion of movies versus books and how every week new movies come out and they aren't that good but everyone rushes to see them. There are also a lot of blockbuster books. If you read a good one, spread the word. Oprah is doing that. If you find something good, let everyone know about it!
I’m a pretty big James Patterson fan, but I haven’t read everything he’s written. (WHO HAS? FIND ME SOMEONE WHO HAS! 95 BOOKS!) So I’m excited about the James Patterson book offer going on at Barnes & Noble this Sunday, August 3—buy one, get one free. I’m excited to the point that I’ve already made […]
