The Apprentice

Author Essay

"Aren't you afraid to be married to her?"

This is a question my husband has been asked again and again, by people who've read my books. They think that anyone who writes such dark and twisted thrillers, who spends her days obsessed with serial killers and blood spatters and autopsies, cannot possibly be normal. That creepy books are surely written by creepy people.

I think my readers are just a little disappointed when they finally meet me, and instead of the vampire-ish woman they've imagined, I turn out to sport no fangs, have no nervous tics, and freely admit that I'm afraid of guns. And the dirt under my fingernails is from gardening, not grave-digging. In short, I appear to be perfectly normal.

Well, as normal as anyone could be who hears a serial killer talking in her head.

But just as one doesn't need to give birth to be an obstetrician, you don't need to be homicidal to write convincingly about murder. The human imagination is capable of both wondrous dreams and terrible nightmares. As a writer, I'm fascinated by the nightmares. I'm driven by the same curiosity that compelled me, as a child, to prod anthills with sticks, or turn over rocks to see what would slither out. I think it's because I live such an utterly normal life, with so little darkness in it, that I can't help but wonder about the dark side of human nature, and about what drives evil. I want to understand it, because it's so alien to me. And so, while I'm doing perfectly ordinary things at home - feeding my roses, or loading the dishwasher - my mind is wandering a far more frightening landscape. Characters are speaking to me. What they tell me is sometimes deeply disturbing.

Of all the characters who've introduced themselves to me, it was Warren Hoyt, the serial killer in THE SURGEON, who hung on most tenaciously, refusing to walk away, even after the book was done. At odd hours during the day, I'd imagine him whispering to me, "Don't you wonder what I'm up to these days? Don't you want to know what I'm planning next?" Even my husband seemed to sense there was another person living in our house. That's how real Warren had become to both of us.

We were on vacation in Italy when Warren practically tapped us both on the shoulders. While driving through Tuscany, we passed a large billboard urging us to visit "The Torture Museum" in San Gimignano. My husband hit the brakes and looked at me.

What Warren wanted most of all was to be back in the game. The last time I'd left him, at the end of THE SURGEON, he was sitting in a Massachusetts prison. But he kept insisting his story wasn't finished. He refused to leave, refused to make way for another set of characters.

And so I let him have his way. In THE APPRENTICE, Warren returns, to once again terrorize Detective Jane Rizzoli. But this time, he is not alone.

Although imprisoned, he has cultivated an acolyte, an unseen partner who is using murderous techniques from Warren's terrible bag of tricks. Only Rizzoli recognizes the new attacks for what they are: Warren's way of communicating with her, of letting her know that he is still thinking of her. That he is still as dangerous as ever.

For two years now, I lived with this creature. People sometimes ask me how I could let someone so twisted take over my imagination without becoming twisted myself.

Here is where the importance of a balanced life comes in. To counteract the darkness of my work, I fill my life with sunny pursuits. I enjoy time with my family. I spend hours in the garden tending my roses, and love the feel of moist soil, the bright greenness of spring shoots. I also play the fiddle, and one of my greatest pleasures is jamming with other Celtic musicians - the rowdier the gathering, the better.

The darkness of one's books does not necessarily reflect the writer's personality.

Oddly enough, I've found that mystery writers are often the gentlest, most normal people in the world. Perhaps we choose to write these books for the same reason tourists visit strange and exotic countries - it's foreign territory to us. Through our writing, we're searching for the answer to why evil exists.

And we can provide, in our books, what real life too often denies us: the satisfaction of watching its defeat.

Tess Gerritsen