Hi Tess Gerritsen, thank's that you have taking the time to answer a few questions of Elements of Crime.

You have studied medicine and worked for a long time as a doctor. What motivated you to write professional books? Was the baby break crucial that you began to write?

Yes, the baby break was an important reason. I finally had the time to write my first book. I have been a writer all my life. I wrote my first "book" when I was only seven years old, so I knew even then that I was a storyteller. But my father warned me that very few writers can make enough to live on, and he advised me to go into science. That's how I ended up becoming a doctor, and practicing medicine. In the back of my mind, though, I always knew I'd go back to writing. And finally, after I began selling novels, I knew that I could make writing my profession -- and survive at it.

You have started to write romantic books, how did you come to the thriller literature? To be specific, to the medical thrillers ?

My first books were romantic thrillers because those are the types of books I was reading at the time, and I loved those stories. But after writing nine of them, I suddenly had an idea for a completely different type of book. I had been talking to a policeman, who had heard rumors of children being kidnaped in Moscow. The Russian police believed the children were being killed and their organs sold on the black market. That story disturbed me so much that I couldn't stop thinking about it. Weeks later, it was still on my mind, and I decided to turn it into a novel: HARVEST. That was my first medical thriller, and I used my experiences as a doctor to make that book as realistic as I could. It turned into a big bestseller here in the U.S., so I decided to continue writing in the thriller genre. All my books since then have been either medical or crime thrillers.

After many individual thriller, in 2001 the first book from the Jane Rizzoli and Maura Isles series was published. What part did your job as a doctor in the genesis of the story?

As a doctor, I'm aware of how much personal and very intimate information we give up as patients. When a medical office takes your blood for lab tests, they learn so many secrets about you. I began to think of all the people who have access to that information -- the person who draws the blood, the nurses, the hospital lab technicians. And I thought: what if, in that group of people, there's someone truly evil, someone who uses that information to choose his next victim? Because he can look at your records, he knows your name, your address, your age, where you work, and whether you're married. He can find you. That's how the story of THE SURGEON (the first book with Jane Rizzoli) got started. I imagined a serial killer who uses a patient's own blood tests to track her down and kill her.

How to properly create characters like Jane Rizzoli and Maura Isles in your head?

The best characters are those who develop entirely on their own, without my even thinking about it. Jane Rizzoli, for instance, started off in THE SURGEON as a minor character, so I didn't put too much thought into who she was. (And at the beginning of the book, I expected that she would die in the story.) She just started behaving in a certain way, and thinking certain thoughts. It happened automatically and naturally, without my planning. She was a reflection of so many women police officers I'd met -- they're very strong, outspoken women and that helped shape her. She took on such a character of her own, that when I got to the scene where I thought she would die, I just couldn't kill her. By that point, I admired her too much. And so she lived, and went on to the next story and the next.

Maura Isles, too, started off as a minor character in THE APPRENTICE. Once again, because she wasn't central to the story, I didn't give much thought to developing her personality. So it happened on its own, without any planning. Suddenly there she was on the page -- logical, reserved, a little mysterious. I wanted to know more, and over the next few books, I did learn more.

So I guess my best advice for developing a character is -- just don't plan them out too carefully. Let them happen, and let yourself be surprised.

I've heard that details of the killings in ” The Apprentice ” ( in german / Die Chirugin ) as an actual series of murders in America are modeled. Is it true?

Yes, some of the details come straight from true crime files. There was a serial rapist in California who attacked couples. He would tie up the husband, turn him face down on the floor, and place a plate on his back. If the husband tried to get up, the plate would fall off and alert the rapist that the husband was trying to move. I used that detail in THE APPRENTICE, only I changed it to a teacup and saucer.

Which function do your male secondary characters? Men have their great performances in your novels so far only as a killer.

There are a number of interesting "good" men in the stories as well. Gabriel Dean, Anthony Sansone, and Daniel Brophy all become very important characters in the books. And I love the character of Vince Korsak, who functions as comic relief because of his romantic interest in Jane's mother. But for the most part, I stay in the viewpoint of Jane and Maura, so you don't get to know the men quite as well.

Can we hope in Germany in 2010 of a new novel by the Rizzoli/Isles series?

There's a new book coming called ICE COLD, and it will be released this July in the U.S. I don't know when it will appear in Germany -- probably not until 2011. Also, the big news here is a weekly TV series that will begin this summer on the TNT channel, featuring Jane and Maura!

Was the series Rizzoli/Isles the breakthrough in your career?

It was certainly one of the breakthroughs. THE SURGEON was my first crime thriller, and I never expected it to be the start of a long-running series. But it was so popular, that I felt compelled to write a second book in the series. And the next, and the next. Over time, the Jane and Maura books became the most popular of all my stories, and I think that's how most of my readers became fans.