Patterson, James

James Patterson, in full James Brendan Patterson, Jr., (born March 22, 1947, Newburgh, New York, U.S.), American author, principally known for his thriller and suspense novels, whose prolific output and business savvy made him a ubiquitous presence on best-seller lists in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

Patterson studied English at Manhattan College (B.A., 1969) and at Vanderbilt University (M.A., 1970). After abandoning graduate school—he had originally intended to complete a doctorate—he found employment as a junior copywriter at an advertising agency, J. Walter Thompson Co., in New York City. There he created the slogan “I’m a Toys ‘R’ Us kid,” and he eventually worked his way up to CEO (1988) and chairman (1990) of the company’s North America division. At the same time, Patterson actively pursued a literary career. His first attempt at fiction, a dark stylized crime novel called The Thomas Berryman Number (1976), won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for best first novel from the Mystery Writers of America. Several novels in a similar vein followed, though he failed to attract much attention from either critics or the reading public.

By the early 1990s Patterson had modified his approach to writing fiction, adopting a style characterized by unadorned prose, bite-sized chapters, and fast-paced streamlined plots. Realizing the sales potential of this formula, he contributed to the promotion of his novel Along Came a Spider (1993; film 2001) by taking the unusual step of creating and financing a television commercial for it. The book, a grisly thriller featuring African American homicide detective Alex Cross, became an instant best seller, and its protagonist resurfaced in more than a dozen sequels, including Kiss the Girls (1995; film 1997), Mary, Mary (2005), Cross (2006; film 2012), Kill Alex Cross (2011), Alex Cross, Run (2013), Cross the Line (2016), Target: Alex Cross (2018), and Deadly Cross (2020). Patterson later launched a spin-off series that centres on Cross’s son; it began with Ali Cross (2019).

In 1996 Patterson quit his advertising job to concentrate on writing. While continuing to work on the profitable Alex Cross series, he began to branch out into other literary genres, such as romance novels and historical fiction. For Miracle on the 17th Green (1996), an inspirational story about a middle-aged golfer, Patterson undertook the practice of writing with a coauthor, and many of his subsequent novels were collaborations. He launched a second series with 1st to Die (2001), which introduced readers to the Women’s Murder Club, a quartet of women professionals who team up to solve crimes. The series proved popular and served as the basis for a short-lived television series (2007–08). Later entries in the numerically titled series, including 7th Heaven (2008), 11th Hour (2012), 14th Deadly Sin (2015), 16th Seduction (2017), and The 20th Victim (2020), were written with coauthors. Patterson’s other thriller series included one involving Michael Bennett, a detective. The first installment, Step on a Crack, was published in 2007, and later books included Burn (2004) and Blindside (2020). The NYPD Red series, which debuted in 2012, centres on an elite task force of the New York Police Department.

Patterson continued to publish stand-alone novels as well. Among them were Honeymoon (2005), which traces the efforts of an FBI agent to track down a femme fatale, and Sail (2008), which centres on a family trying to evade hit men while on a boat trip. Sundays at Tiffany’s (2008; filmed for television 2010) was a supernatural romance written with Gabrielle Charbonnet, and The Christmas Wedding (2011) was a family drama written with Richard DiLallo. Patterson later collaborated with former U.S. president Bill Clinton on the thrillers The President Is Missing (2018) and The President’s Daughter (2021). Run, Rose, Run (2022) was written with country singer Dolly Parton. Patterson’s nonfiction books included The Murder of King Tut: The Plot to Kill the Child King (2009; with Martin Dugard), which explores the centuries-old mystery surrounding the death of the Egyptian pharaoh, and The Last Days of John Lennon (2020; written with Casey Sherman and Dave Wedge), about the murder of the legendary musician.

In 2005, after discovering that his son lacked an interest in reading, Patterson created the Maximum Ride series of science-fiction novels, aimed at young adults but designed to appeal to readers of all ages; a film adaptation was released in 2016. Its overwhelming success led him to develop the Daniel X and Witch & Wizard series of children’s fantasy books, and all three series were eventually adapted into graphic novels. In Confessions of a Murder Suspect (2012; with Maxine Paetro), he tailored standard thriller conventions to an adolescent audience in relating the tale of a young girl who is blamed for her parents’ murder. He established the Pageturner Awards, which gave funding to educators and libraries, in 2005; they were discontinued three years later. Patterson founded the Web site readkiddoread.com in 2011; it promoted childhood reading and provided lists of suggested texts for different age and interest groups. In 2015 he teamed with publisher Little, Brown and Company to form a children’s book imprint known as jimmy patterson. The next year he partnered with the publishing companies Penguin Random House UK and Hachette Book Group to form BookShots, an imprint of short books that were in a variety of genres, under 150 pages in length, and priced less than $5. Many of them featured characters from his earlier efforts and were written with coauthors.

Though some critics derided Patterson’s work as facile and formulaic, he was nonetheless recognized as a publishing phenomenon, capable of producing multiple best sellers each year. By the second decade of the 21st century, he had penned (alone or with a coauthor) several dozen novels, with worldwide sales exceeding 300 million copies.

In 2015 the National Book Foundation awarded him its Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community. The memoir James Patterson by James Patterson: The Stories of My Life was published in 2022.