In 2001, Morgan Freeman starred as Alex Cross in a film adaptation of Along Came a Spider, and Tyler Perry also played the character in the 2012 film Alex Cross. Patterson’s 1993 novel, Along Came a Spider, his first book to feature Alex Cross, was also his first New York Times bestseller in fiction. After being turned down by thirty-one publishers, it won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel. Walter Thompson, Patterson published his first novel, The Thomas Berryman Number, with Little, Brown and Company. Walter Thompson, eventually becoming CEO of its North American company. Instead, he moved to New York to become a junior copywriter for the advertising agency J.

He left Vanderbilt before getting his PhD due to complications involving the Vietnam War. He was given a full-ride scholarship to Vanderbilt University’s graduate program in English. In 1969, he graduated from Manhattan College. The son of an insurance salesman and a schoolteacher, Patterson grew up in Newburgh, New York, and began casually writing at the age of nineteen. He is also the first author to have #1 new titles simultaneously on the New York Times adult and children’s bestseller lists. In addition to writing the thriller novels for which he is best known, among them The President Is Missing with President Bill Clinton, Patterson also writes fiction for young readers of all ages, including the Max Einstein series, produced in partnership with the Albert Einstein Estate. He has sold over 380 million books worldwide and currently holds the Guinness World Record for the most #1 New York Times bestsellers. He has created more enduring fictional characters than any other novelist writing today, with his Alex Cross, Michael Bennett, Women’s Murder Club, Private, NYPD Red, Daniel X, Maximum Ride, and Middle School series. James Patterson is the world’s bestselling author and most trusted storyteller.

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