James Patterson

James Patterson (born 22 March 1947 in Newburgh, New York) is an American thriller writer, creator of the Alex Cross, Women's Murder Club and Maximum Ride series.

After degrees in English from Manhattan University and Vanderbilt University, Patterson worked as an advertising executive at J. Walter Thompson, retiring from advertising in 1996. His first novel, The Thomas Berryman Number (1976), won the 1977 Edgar Award for Best First Novel. Along Came a Spider, published by Little, Brown on 3 February 1993, introduced the forensic psychologist and detective Alex Cross. 1st to Die (Little, Brown, March 2001) opened the Women's Murder Club series. Much of his later output has been written with co-authors, including Maxine Paetro, Andrew Gross and Michael Ledwidge, and with Bill Clinton he wrote The President Is Missing.

He was the first author to sell one million e-books, and reported sales run to several hundred million copies. He received the National Book Foundation's Literarian Award in 2015.

For collectors

The key early firsts are The Thomas Berryman Number (1976), his Edgar-winning debut, the Little, Brown first printing of Along Came a Spider (1993), which began the Alex Cross series, and 1st to Die (2001), the first Women's Murder Club novel.