Authors: Lisa Gardner
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Author’s Note and Acknowledgments
A
S ALWAYS
, I’m indebted to quite a few people who helped make this book possible. From the Boston Police Department: Deputy Daniel Coleman; Director of Communications Nicole St. Peter; Detective Juan Torres; Detective Wayne Rock; Lieutenant Detective Michael Galvin; and finally, my dear neighbor and fellow Kiwanian, Robert “Chuck” Kyle, BPD retired, who helped set all the wheels in motion (and has more stories than one author could ever hope to honor in a single novel). These people gave patiently of their time and expertise; naturally, I exploited all of them and took substantial fictional license.
My humble gratitude to Marv Milbury, former AN at the Boston State Mental Hospital. Marv is an exceptionally nice man whose stories are guaranteed to curl anyone’s hair. During our lunch, even the waitress gave up working and started listening to him talk. Again, more stories than one book could hold, but I did my best. For people who are really into the history of mental institutes, I did have to fudge the time line of operations but tried to keep to the spirit of the mental institute experience.
Thanks also to forensic anthropologist Ann Marie Mires, who gave generously of her personal time to help me understand proper protocol for exhuming a thirty-year-old grave. For the record, the information on wet mummification came straight off the Internet, is probably totally incorrect, and shouldn’t be held against Ann Marie. That’s what fiction writers are for.
To Betsy Eliot, dear friend and fellow author, who came to my rescue once more. Not many people will still take your calls after you’ve asked them to set up a shooting in Boston. Betsy not only assisted invaluably with Bobby’s first book,
Alone,
but when I called her up this time and told her I needed to tour an abandoned mental institute, she cheerfully drove me straight there. At dusk. In rushhour traffic. Love you, Bets.
To the real-life D.D. Warren, neighbor, dear friend, and good sport, who never questioned me using her name for what we both assumed would be a fairly minor character in
Alone.
Leave it to D.D. to steal the show and end up in two novels. The real D.D. is as gorgeous as her fictional counterpart and, fortunately for all of us, equally dedicated to serving her community. She is also blessed with a handsome, funny, brilliant husband, John Bruni, who got to be a lieutenant in
Alone
but had to sit this book out. You’re a good sport, John, and a wonderful poet.
To my brother Rob, who graciously volunteered his coworkers to populate and staff the Boston State Mental portrayed in my novel. See, I’m not the only member of the family who’s devious and twisted.
To good friends and seamstresses extraordinaire Cathy Caruso and Marie Kurmin, who provided some basic information on custom window treatments. I didn’t get to use as much as I would’ve liked—my fault, not yours. I swear I will do better next time.
And to the lucky Joan Barker, winner of the third annual Kill a Friend, Maim a Buddy sweepstakes at www.LisaGardner.com. Joan named her dear friend Inge Lovell to be the lucky stiff in my latest novel. This is what friendship will do to you. Hope both of you ladies enjoy, and for the rest of you, hey, come September the search for literary immortality will begin once again….
Finally, under the care and feeding of authors: to Anthony, for all the reasons he knows best; to Grace, who is already at work on her first novel (she’s partial to hot pink ink); to Donna Kenison and Susan Presby, who let me crash at the gorgeous Mt. Washington Hotel so I could make my deadline and preserve my sanity; and to our dear neighbors Pam and Glenda, for Monday ladies’ night, cheese cookies, and leftover salmon. It’s the little things that make a neighborhood feel like home.
Lights, Camera,
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the movie!
A behind-the-scenes look of how a bestselling suspense novel becomes
a TNT feature movie
By Lisa Gardner
Hollywood. Movie stars. Red carpet premieres. Authors are by nature book lovers, but even we’re not immune to the glamour of the two magical words, “Option clause.” In the book biz, that means someone wants to make a movie out of your novel. Maybe. Actually filming a movie is called exercising the option clause. First, a book must be optioned. One phone call, one tantalizing whisper of a promise.
In the spring of 2011, I got the first call regarding a possible option of my series character, Boston homicide detective D. D. Warren. Which book, I asked, trying to sound very professional and not at all giddy and starstruck. Pause. Longer pause.
Extremely
long pause. Turned out, the executive producer, Stephanie Germain, was less interested in a specific title as she was my character. Basically, she wasn’t after a plot. She wanted D. D. Warren.
I loved the producer already.
Author Lisa Gardner with executive producer Stephanie Germain.
Next thing I knew, Stephanie, who has developed many Nora Roberts novels for television, had secured an agreement with TNT to bring
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life. Better yet, she had hired a screenwriter and they wanted to talk to me about all things D.D. Where did she go to school, what was she like as a child, did she actually have parents? And while we were at it, was there a particular actress I could picture as Detective D. D. Warren? Because first comes the producer, then comes the screenwriter, and next comes casting.
Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren … a brunette?
I’ll be the first to confess I never picture real people as my book characters. Certainly, when I was writing
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I pictured D.D. to be, well, D.D. But for casting, of course, you need a star. From the very beginning, the powers that be wanted Carla Gugino, fresh off her buzzworthy turn in
Entourage,
as well as
Watchmen,
Night at the Museum,
and
Spy Kids
. I believe my husband summed it up as “You mean that brunette bombshell?”
Book character Detective Warren is known for her short blond curls. A brunette would definitely be a departure, but I was the first to say Detective D. D. Warren is not a woman to be defined by her hair. What mattered to me most was attitude. I watched one clip of Carla’s D. D. Warren, dressing down Kevin Alejandro’s Bobby Dodge, and I was hooked. I think my favorite moment in the
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movie is when Bobby questions D.D. about leaving his bed without a word in the middle of the night, and she asks him what did he really expect, for her to write a note and leave a cookie? I spent two days on set, and from everything I saw, Carla Gugino
is
D. D. Warren.
Of course, as long as male viewers get Carla Gugino, what’s in it for us females? Screenwriter Janet Brownell created a very clever script with two answers: Kevin Alejandro playing Bobby Dodge, as well as Mark-Paul Gosselaar playing Alex Wilson, a criminologist and other D. D. Warren love interest, who in the book world doesn’t appear until
Live to Tell,
but is a great addition to
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Kevin Alejandro is best known for the series
True Blood
as well as
Southland.
On set, he nailed Bobby’s quiet intensity, the sniper turned detective. In the movie, unlike the novel, Bobby and D.D. are currently lovers, or maybe more like friends with benefits. Until, of course, Alex Wilson comes along.
I still remember Mark-Paul Gosselaar as Zach Morris from
Saved by the Bell.
Trust me, he’s grown up nicely, while retaining the sort of arrogant charm needed to challenge D.D.’s take-no-prisoners attitude. In an interesting twist of fate, Carla Gugino and Mark-Paul Gosselaar have acted together once before—nearly twenty years ago when she played his first girlfriend on
Good Morning, Miss Bliss,
the prequel to
Saved by the Bell
. Let’s just say, twenty years later, sparks still fly.
One D. D. Warren. Two hunky male leads. What’s not to love?
Lisa Gardner with the stars of
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from left to right, Carla Gugino as Detective D. D. Warren, Lisa Gardner,
Mark-Paul Gosselaar as criminologist Alex Wilson, and Kevin Alejandro as Detective Bobby Dodge.
Filming a scene with Carla Gugino, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, and Kevin Alejandro.
It takes a village …
After casting comes filming, of course. In the book world,
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takes place in Boston. In the TV world,
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takes place in Some Major Municipal City. Basically, TNT already has a Boston TV show (
Rizzoli & Isles,
based on Tess Gerritsen’s fabulous thrillers), so the network opted to set
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not-in-Boston. For filming, that translated to New Orleans, where moviemaking is a major industry, filled with tax incentives for the production companies and opportunities for the locals.
Shooting a movie is intense! One hundred and forty people working long hours to prep and film the entire movie in less than two months. There’s film crews, lighting and electrical crews, costume and wardrobe departments, makeup, sound, props, production department, location scouts, craft services, extras, stand-ins, drivers, and about half a dozen production assistants (PAs), which seems to be a catchall position of doing whatever it is that must be done right now that no one else is doing. Riding herd over this madness is the director, John Gray, of
Ghost Whisperer
fame
.
Then, generally standing beside him at video village, the director of photography (Jim Chressanthis), the executive producer, plus the script supervisor. Finally, there’s the line producer, who has already figured out everything the filming crew needs before they even started filming. I could use a line producer in my life. I’m convinced of it.
As an author, I was fascinated by all the positions you never think about. For example, the props department. Two people who think solely about props. For wardrobe (guns, badges, backpacks). For settings (I was particularly impressed by the beer stein collection they devised for Dr. Schuepp’s office). For other props: There’s a scene in the novel where D.D. opens an old storage box to find a clue. I describe the clue, but, of course, what
else
is in the box? Leave it to the brilliant props department to come up with really cool Old Things in a Storage Box.
Most of us fantasize about one day being a movie star. But who grows up saying, “I want to be the props department”? (Film students/artists, I’m told, who enjoy creative, never boring, and pretty challenging work, given what it takes to track down some items.) For that matter, how does one end up in craft services, feeding 140 people sixteen hours a day with everything from a truck filled with candy and chips to trays of freshly prepared hors d’oeuvres? (A man, I was informed, met in a bar. Isn’t that always the case?)
I was extremely impressed by the production department. I don’t consider myself the most descriptive writer. I like action, dialogue, drama. Meaning the production department had the tough job of fully fleshing out roughly detailed scenes. Catherine Gagnon lives in a mansion. What kind of mansion? Brick, wood, stucco? I describe the opening crime scene as an earthen pit in the ground. But how big, containing what other items, and hello, TV is a visual medium so let’s up the creep factor here.