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| Robert Ellis |
I can remember coming home from college one year and finding my father all amped up about a thriller he was reading. Actually, he was more than amped up, he was bouncing off the walls. He kept saying, "It's the wheelchair scene, Bobby. The wheelchair scene. You've gotta read this book!" My dad had been a journalism major in school and was editor-in-chief of the Temple University Press, a daily newspaper published by the university in Philadelphia. He loved history and loved reading about the Civil War and Russia. In fact, he had decided to go back to school, and after he retired, was earning a graduate degree in history from Villanova University. I mention this because seeing my father so excited about a thriller was more than unusual. When I asked him about the book, he scooped it up off the kitchen counter and showed me the cover.
RED DRAGON by Thomas
Harris.
This is painful to
admit, but at the time I had no idea who Thomas Harris was or what RED
DRAGON might be about. My interests were
a thousand miles away. But then I moved to Los Angeles and everything changed.
I can remember a life without e-books, a ten year stretch when bookstores were
really thriving and crime fiction was in a Renaissance. No matter where you
lived in the city, you could throw a stone in any direction, and nine times out
of ten, wind up hitting a bookstore. Authors came in every weekend to meet
their fans and sign their latest work. I was writing spec scripts at the time,
but reading a lot of novels and showing up for book signings as often as I
could. One question that every author
seemed to be asked was, what are your ten favorite novels? Every answer was
different, except for one novel, a single title. Every author I was following
included RED DRAGON on their list. As I thought it over, Harris's influence had
been huge. He'd had an impact and changed the entire genre. But even more,
Harris's RED DRAGON and THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS had changed everything for me
as well.
I wrote THE
DEAD ROOM for my father as a way of saying thanks -- a legal thriller set in
Philadelphia and the surrounding neighborhoods where I grew up. It's the story of
Teddy Mack, a young civil attorney who has just graduated from law school.
Unfortunately for Teddy, and for unknown reasons, his new boss is forcing him
to represent a man arrested for the horrific murder of an eighteen-year-old
girl. I particularly enjoyed doing the research for this novel because
everything about it was new. I had the opportunity to meet with the district
attorney of Philadelphia. I walked through the Criminal Justice Center, Police
Headquarters, and most fascinating of all, the Curran-Fromhold Correctional
Facility, where I learned that the only protein source inmates receive is
turkey because of the tryptophan. Caffeine, of course, is forbidden! Writing
THE DEAD ROOM changed me. And RED DRAGON by Thomas Harris, and as presented by
my father, turned out to be the light that showed me the way. "It's the
wheelchair scene, Bobby. The wheelchair scene. You've gotta read this
book!"Sleep loose,
Robert
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