Summary: Hello and welcome to You Wrote The Book, a book based podcast hosted by Simon Savidge. Each fortnight over the coming months he will be joined by a special guest author to discuss their life as a writer and as a reader, from the current novel they have published to the first book they read and everything in between. Simon’s guest for this episode is Tess Gerritsen, one of the biggest selling crime writers around now and indeed currently riding high in the book charts worldwide with her latest novel. Tess has been thrilling us with romantic suspense’s novels and medical thrillers for almost three decades. Since 2001 she has been thrilling us with one of crime fiction fans favourite series, Rizzoli and Isles. For ten novels we have been following Detective Jane Rizzoli and pathologist Dr Maura Isles. In Die Again Rizzoli and Isles are back at the crime scene of a famous hunter and taxidermist who has been horrifically killed rather like a predator might kill its prey in the wild and it soon appears this might not be a singular incident for the killer. We also jump to a safari trip in Botswana where a group of relative strangers are heading for adventure only the trip soon becomes a nightmare as something or someone is picking them off one by one. How are the two stories connected? You will have to read the book to find out. Simon had the pleasure of catching up with Tess over lunch, so do excuse the background noise, to discuss Die Again and the rest of the Rizzoli and Isles series. We talk about how she is inspired by the most macabre of facts, autopsies, the mystery that is plotting, the journey from book to television and the fascination with big cats. Simon started off by asking Tess if she had realised that when she first started writing The Surgeon she knew she had a hit series on her hands... Over the next few episodes Simon will be joined by Laline Paull and Jessie Burton. If you have any questions for the authors, would like to suggest authors you think Simon should be getting on the show, or simply want to have a natter about books, you can email youwrotethebook@gmail.com or find us on twitter @youwrotethebook. If you want to hear Simon talking more books do join him every other week with Thomas Otto on The Readers Podcast, you can also find him chatting and reviewing book on his blog Savidge Reads. Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes where you can find previous episodes with Rose Tremain, Christos Tsiolkas, Evie Wyld, Armistead Maupin, David Nicholls, Joanne Harris, Richard Flanagan, Kamila Shamsie, Maggie O’Farrell and many more.
