Nelson DeMille Discusses John Corey in TMBS's bibliomystery The Book Case

As you probably know, Nelson DeMille wrote a short story for our Bibliomystery Series titled The Book Case. Then he wrote a blog discussing his character, John Corey! Check it out!

Back in 1997, I wrote a book titled Plum Island which featured a character named John Corey.  Corey was NYPD, homicide, though when we first meet him, he’s sitting on the back porch of a borrowed house that overlooks the water on the east end of Long Island, convalescing from wounds he’d received in the line of duty.

John Corey is thinking about life, and one of his thoughts is, “It occurred to me that the problem with doing nothing is not knowing when you’re finished.”

And thus was born the wisecracking but wise about-to-be-ex-cop.

I had never done a series character, and John Corey was supposed to retire from the NYPD and retire from my life after I wrote The End.

But after Plum Island was published, I started getting hundreds of letters from readers asking if I was going to do another John Corey book.

Well, I wasn’t, but John Corey looked like he could pay the rent for me.

The problem was I’d retired Corey on a medical disability which is almost as stupid as authors who kill of their main character.

The solution was to get Corey a job as a contract agent with the Federal Joint Terrorist Task Force, (which I renamed the “Anti-Terrorist Task Force,” in my books) and put him to work in the city he knew and loved, but this time chasing terrorists.

The next Corey book was The Lion’s Game, then Night Fall, Wild Fire, and The Lion.  Corey will be back in October in The Panther, still paying my rent.

I learn from my fan letters, and many of my readers were asking if I’d go back in time and show John Corey when he was a city detective.  I’m not a fan of prequels, but finally the idea started to sound good.

But before I jumped into that idea with a full novel, I decided to write a short story and see how it played with readers and with me.  The result is The Book Case a good length short story showing an earlier John Corey before he got plugged by the bad guys and wound up on that back porch looking at the sea.

The Book Case is a classical murder mystery featuring the sharp-eyed, trench-coated detective who’s got a nose for things that don’t smell right, and a brain that goes into overdrive as soon as he steps over the crime scene tape.

It was a challenge to do an earlier version of my successful Corey character, but also fun.  And we get to see that the wiseass we know and love in the novels was always a wiseass.  But we always suspected that.

We still have a few copies of The Book Case left, call us up to get your copy before they're all gone!