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September 20, 1999
Web posted at: 11:37 a.m. EDT (1537 GMT)

(CNN) -- Detective Alex Cross, James Patterson's larger-than-life hero, is back for another adventure in "Pop Goes the Weasel."

This is Patterson's eleventh novel, his fifth featuring Cross. In the new novel, the detective is in love, but faces a fierce nemesis who threatens his happiness.

Patterson says the idea of the Cross character actually came to him after he saw a factoid on the Lindbergh kidnapping.

The historic kidnapping case got him thinking about how a tragedy involving one child can often have more impact on the public than the death of hundreds of people in an accident or disaster.

"I was just curious about that phenomenon and once again, it just struck me as one of those awful nightmares and the idea of creating a contemporary kidnapping that would rival Lindbergh to me was a very scary idea. So I had that thought. Then I'd had this notion of a hero, like Cross, who in the first 50 pages was a woman when I initially wrote it ("Along Came A Spider"). Then I thought, no, I don't want to do that, and I changed it and then Alex, formerly Alexis, became a man."

But Cross may some day be replaced. The popular suspense author doesn't rule out the possibility of creating a new hero for his works.

"At some point I'd like to develop another hero figure, but it's hard for me to top Alex in a lot of ways because he's extremely human and very sensitive. He is raising these two kids by himself, he has this terrific relationship with his grandmother. He chooses to live in a tough part of town, even though he doesn't have to. He's raised himself up and has gotten a very good education. He's also larger than life in being this swashbuckling heroic kind of guy, and he's genuinely a good person, too," he says.

Patterson has been writing suspense novels for over 23 years, a career he says began in college.

"In 1971 while I was in college, I worked in a mental institution outside of Cambridge, Massachusetts. I became a voracious reader during this period and just loved what I was reading. I began scribbling back then, and my first novel, "The Thomas Berryman Number," was published five years later in 1976."

That novel went on to win the Edgar Award for Best First Mystery, after having been turned down by 26 publishers.

The 50-year-old author says it upsets him when people criticize some of his stories as unrealistic.

"That leads me to think of someone looking at a Picasso or a Chagall and saying, "It's not very realistic." I don't think the painters were going for realism," Patterson says, "The books I write are not about realism; they're about nightmares, not literal nightmares, but nightmares I feel about the world."

Patterson relays those nightmares to his readers with short chapters and quick action. He says he consciously decided to write in short chapters because he wanted to make the story the "fastest-paced thing" he had ever put on paper.

"I wanted to differentiate the series from what was already out there, and the short chapters are something I decided to do consciously. They really are addictive."

In fact, Patterson attributes the popularity and success of his works to their fast pace and compelling main character.

"They're very fast reads," he says. "When someone reads one, a very high proportion of readers goes on to the next. The books are somewhat addictive. I think (there are) a lot of different, compelling reasons as to why ... readers really like Alex; I think he grows on people. They like the family, the grandmother, the kids and the (message) I'll get in letters from readers is, "Do not hurt any one in Alex's family; do not kill their cat." I get a lot of letters and most of them are very positive, which is great. People will pick up that I'm not very good on my gun facts but other than that, that's the only negative thing."

Patterson's previous works include, "Along Came a Spider," "Cat and Mouse" and "Kiss the Girls," which was turned into a movie starring Morgan Freeman as Cross.

"Pop Goes the Weasel" is published by Little, Brown and Company, which is a division of Time Warner, the parent company of CNN Interactive.