If I were to write the books my readers say they want me to write, I’d be frozen in a schizophrenic paralysis.  Judging by recent emails, most of my readers are begging for another Rizzoli and Isles book, and they’re not so sure they want to read a stand-alone historical thriller like THE BONE GARDEN. Then I take a look at my reviews on Amazon.com and see some really rotten reviews from readers who write that they can’t stand Rizzoli and don’t ever want to see another book about her.  No matter what I write, it seems that I’m going to piss off some reader somewhere. 

I have to remind myself why I got into this business in the first place: because I love to tell stories. 

Lately, I hunger to tell different kinds of stories.  I came to that realization a few months ago, as I was preparing for my speech at Thrillerfest, about how to turn an idea into a book.  As I was jotting down my thoughts, it occurred to me that what I’d tell writers today isn’t what I would have told them ten years ago.  My sense of what makes a great story has changed because my reading tastes have changed.  Many thrillers now leave me cold.  I’ve grown tired of ever more cruel and gruesome killings.  I don’t want to read about guns and explosions and invincible he-men or kick-ass warrior women.  I don’t want to read about sociopathic, alcoholic heroes.  And here’s the most surprising thing of all: action bores me.  I find myself flipping past those scenes.

“What?” you’re probably asking.  “How can a thriller writer be bored by action scenes?”

But it’s true.  When I go to a movie these days, if there’s an obligatory car chase or gun battle, I find myself yawning and counting the minutes until some good dialogue comes along.  I remember watching the second Matrix movie, and during all those painfully prolonged fight scenes between Mr. Smith and the Keanu Reeves character, I was bored out of my mind because — dare I say it? 

Action is just not all that interesting.  On the page or on the screen.

Maybe it’s the fact I’m getting older, but what I find riveting in a movie or a book is great dialogue infused with conflict.  I find more tension in the witty repartee of a Jane Austen novel than in a James Bond chase scene.  I find more suspense in the threat of violence rather than in the violence itself.

THE BONE GARDEN grew out of my own changing tastes.  Lately I find myself drawn more and more to history, and I wanted to tell a meaty story set in a time of grave-robbers and horrifying medical practices.  I wanted to write about Oliver Wendell Holmes and the dawn of microbial theory in medicine. The fact it isn’t a Rizzoli story may have touched off a bit of panic at my publisher.  What?  The author wants to try something new?  Something her readers aren’t expecting?  Something her readers may not want?

I wrote the book knowing full well that I will probably lose a few readers because the subject matter is so different.  It’s a scary gamble, but I don’t want to be just another commercial ovelist who writes the same damn story again and again.  That’s what readers, booksellers, and publishing beancounters want us to do.  They want us to be predictable, because then they can predictably sell our books.  They want us to conform to the brand we’ve established for ourselves. 

They don’t want us to be artists; they want us to be trained poodles.

I’ve taken risky leaps more than a few times, so I know all about the possible rewards and consequences of doing the unexpected.  Eons ago, I started off as a romance writer.  Then I became a medical thriller writer.  Then I wrote GRAVITY and became, briefly, a SF writer.  Then I wrote THE SURGEON and became a crime writer.  And now I’ve taken another turn with an historical thriller. Sometimes the gamble was a commercial success; sometimes (like GRAVITY) it was a commercial flop.  But I’ve never once regretted having written a book.  I’ve never said, “that was a baby I wish I’d never given birth to.”  Because every book, whether it sold well or not, taught me something.  Every book has been, in its own way, deeply satisfying.  Every book was one I had to write.

Now I wait for THE BONE GARDEN’s release with more than a little trepidation.  I’m proud of this baby, but I know how unforgiving the marketplace — and the critics – can be.