The author James Patterson appears to be obsessed with numbers. Walking into a London branch of WH Smith, your correspondent was bombarded with audio adverts for his most recent tome, ‘7th Target’ while being confronted with displays for what one can only presume is his preceding work:’6th Reason’. These are, it emerges, his books for the ‘Women’s Murder Club’, and all of them follow the same pattern – back to ‘1st To Kill’.
Patterson is a former advertising director, so such a savvy, easy to theme sense of promotion – the earworm equivalent of putting one foot in front of the other – should hardly surprise. The series has even transferred to TV, and follows four professional women who come together to solve crimes. No doubt they are also quite sassy, and don’t take any **** from men.
One wonders whether the child Patterson orchestrated miniature product launches accompanied by spreadsheets and pie charts, using extendable pointy sticks to identify his key demographic.
‘As you can see, the early 20s to mid-40s female sector is particularly vulnerable to our new product, ‘My First Novel, by James Patterson – aged ten and three quarters point five six recurring.’ You, mother, are already outside my market reach.’
News hour, with Jerry Caesar 