Rizzoli and Isles partnership goes back long before tonight’s series premiere. In fact, the two crime busters made their introductions in The Apprentice, a thriller penned by season author, Tess Gerritsen. Since creating the awkward relationship, Gerritsen has written eight books featuring her dynamic duo.

Recently, Gerritsen was in Atlanta for a special sneak preview of the series and answered questions to the press and her fans about the TV show and her collected works.
Rizzoli and Isles premieres tonight at 10:00 pm on TNT.

How does it feel to see your book characters come to life?

It was a real blast. It helps that I love these two actors: Sasha and Angie — they have so much charisma, they’re fun to watch it also helps that the head writer, Janet Tamaro has a wicked sense of humor and that comes through in the TV show.

You’re the expert on Rizzoli and Isles, how would you describe the two characters to your new TV public?

Jane Rizzoli is a blue-collar homicide detective, who is brash, aggressive, smart and not afraid to say or do anything. Maura Isles is the proper, well-educated medical examiner who believes in logic and science. During one of the interviews, Janet turned to me and said “I just realized who they [Risolli and Isle] are: They’re Kirk and Spock.” And I thought you know, you’re right.

… But that’s what makes it work, right?

Yeah, they’re really different and they don’t understand each other that well. They come from completely different backgrounds, completely different points of view and yet because of their jobs, they have learned to respect each other and out of that has come a weird friendship.

What was it like to work with Janet [Tamaro] as you started to cultivate the series and work on the episodes.

One thing about Janet is because of sense of humor, I knew it was going to end up in the script — and it certainly did. I also like the fact that she also has a dark side. She started off as a crime reporter, so she has a journalism background. She has seen the most horrifying things that people can do to each other and she’s fascinated by them. She’s a mystery reader as well so we both come from that place where we’re fascinated by dark stuff and we want to - maybe for our own mental health, figure out a way to explain it.

Is that cathartic for you?

It’s cathartic for me because I don’t like to think that things are totally random. I like to think there’s a reason why so-and-so did such-and-such and of course that’s not realistic because life is random. But it’s a way for me, as Maura Isles would do of ordering the universe.

How much of your self is in each of your characters?

I’m totally Maura Isles. I have nothing to do with Jane Rizzoli — she’s my total opposite.

That’s interesting because you created Jane first.

I did, and I think that’s why Jane was easy for me to create because it was like “lets just go the opposite of anything I would do,” [laughs]. So every action, every word out of her mouth — is something I would do the other way. I’m the total opposite of aggression, I am really conflict adverse and she’s not afraid to embrace her inner boy. So in a way it made her easy to write because of that. I never had to ask myself what would she do, I always knew what Jane would do. She’s my evil twin.

One thing I notice from reading synopsis of your books, there’s some pretty gruesome murders. Some critics say there’s too much violence on television. What do you have to say about that?

A lot of my stuff comes from true crime. A lot of my elements are inspired by things that have actually been done. And again, I want this catharsis of being able to explain it in the end. There’s a psychological benefit I think to reading mystery novels. And I think that’s why women read books in which the victims are women.

You’ll notice a lot of crime and serial killer novels, it’s the male perpetrator chasing female victims. Why do women read these books, are we masochist, do we like to see ourselves as victims? And I notice this among my own readers they’ll tell me they like reading serial killer books but only if the victims are women, they don’t want to read about male victims, they don’t care about male victims. So what’s going on here: I’ve come to the conclusion that we identify with the victim in a scary book and if we cannot identify with the victim then it is not scary to us we’re not drawn to the story. It’s like when children go to the zoo … they look for the snakes, and the lions and the tigers — they look for things that can eat them. So I think its almost a normal human thing to pay attention to things that are dangerous.

As you said, you pick up a lot of idea from real life crimes, do you ever feel that your writings can inspire a criminal?

I’m not aware that its happened yet. But a year and a half ago, I got a call from a homicide detective in Central California and it was clear from the very beginning that she knew a lot about me, my husband, and she knew where we had lived. She finally got around to asking the question she wanted to ask: There had been a serial killer at work in Central California In the ‘70s and she said, “We feel you must know who he is.” And I said why, and she said, “Because we read your books and everything your killer does in that book comes straight from our crime files. These are details we never released to the public only you seem to know them. You must have interviewed this person or talked to his person. You must have got this information some how.” They even considered my husband briefly as a suspect, but as it turns out there were a couple of times we were not there when a crime was committed so she decided it was not my husband. I told her I never interviewed anyone for this book what I did is I made this person up and I just followed the logical sequence of events to how he would enter a house and immobilize a couple and what he would do. It was just me playing out this role in my head and it happened the way it occurred in your crime file, it’s because there must have been a logical reason for what your killer did every step of the way.

When I hung up the phone I said, “Whoa my God, this is really scary.” But these crimes took occurred well before I wrote the books so it was the other way around — he wasn’t inspired by my books, but somehow I was able to tap into whatever methods he used and be that accurate.

Angie Hartman plays your character Rizzoli, how do you think she did? Did she nail it or did you have to cultivate the character?

She nailed it right off. Really, except for the fact that she’s gorgeous. If she was short and had frizzy brown hair everything would match up point-by-point. The Boston accent is really difficult, its very subtle — when you hear it you know it. So I think probably best that Angie should not even bother [laughing].

The pilot is based off your book, The Apprentice. Will your fans see other portions of your books featured throughout the series?

You’re going to see a lot of people that you’re already familiar with from the books. And there’s a theme later on with Jane’s mom where she has martial problems that will be played up later on, too.

I was reading on Murderati about your first press juncket. Tell me how a press junket is different from what you’re accustomed to.

First of all, books don’t get nearly that much attention. I’ve been on 12 book tours now, this is going to be the 13th book tour — I can’t believe how old I am. When you get to a new town, you’re lucky to get maybe two interviews, maybe radio, hopefully newspaper — because its fiction and honestly the pool of readers in this country is not nearly as big as the television watchers. So that’s the big thing, suddenly I’m getting more attention because they’re being made into a television show. And the other thing is that TV has more money to spend.

You started out writing Harlequin romances, tell me what it was like to write your first book.

When I was an intern in medical school, I was working 80 hours a week - barely had time to take a bath, and one of my patients introduced me to a Harlequin book. After she left the hospital, she gave me this bag of books and I started reading and I got briefly hooked on them. After a hard day when you’ve seen death, you’ve seen tragedy, there’s something really comforting about a good old-fashioned romance novel.

So that’s why my first book was a romance thriller. But I must say it was with a twist because my editor called me from Harlequin and she said, “Do you know how many people you killed in this book?” and I said no, and she replied “thirteen — we counted them. That’s a record for Harlequin Books. It was obvious pretty early on that I was meant to be a thriller writer.

I read that you write all your books long hand but now you’re blogging, how is that working for you?

Its really weird, blogging I do straight from the computer and I have no problem with that but when I write fiction, every time I try to do it from the computer I get blocked.

Your first short story reflected some issues that were going on with your mother, how much of that has stayed with you as you progressed in writing.

Well it was the first time I had a story published and made me feel that I could be a writer. It’s a reflection of how complicated relationships are between mothers and daughters. In a way it comes out in the Rizzoli series as well, she and her mother — they love and hate each other at the same time. So again, it goes back to living your life and using it in your books.

You have thirteen books featuring Rizzoli and Isle. As the series continues what are your concerns about your characters outgrowing their personas in your books?

I think there’s going to be a bit of divergence and I’m willing to accept that because the series is so good. And I’m hoping my readers with understand these are two different aspects of the same characters. It’s a little bit weird, but my real hope for this TV show (and my publisher’s hope) is that it inspires TV watchers to see what the books say — and they become readers.

You co-wrote a made-for-television movie “Adrift” in the ‘90s, what was the experience like working on a tv movie as opposed to working on a tv series?
It made me realize I don’t play well with others. I love writing books because I’m in total control of my universe. And whatever shows up on the page is me. It’s hard to write for TV because you have to please so many people. I don’t know how Janet is able to do it. You’re juggling so many different things, you’re working with a team of writers and for someone who’s used to having control of their characters it’s a real adjustment that I’m not good at making. So that experience taught me that I’m really a novelist, not a TV writer.

You had several posts on your blog about being “too open” …

I had been complaining about how tough it is to have a bad review and that authors read books differently than reviewers do and whose perspective have more validity. Because of my musing, a lot of my readers got ticked off with me. I tried to be open about how tender author’s egos are.

When we put out a book they very much are an extension of ourselves — they are for a lot of writers I know, and to have your books torn apart by a reviewer sometimes feels very personal. If a TV show gets torn apart, there’s like a whole crew of thousands who are responsible for that show, so the hurt goes around and it gets diluted, but when it’s a book its you — its all you, there’s no one else to blame. Having opened myself up by saying we’re human beings and it hurts us to see our “children” get slashed apart, a lot of people just thought, “You know that you should just grow up.” Well I feel that any one that gets a bad performance review is going to feel the same way, so that’s what happened. And I just decided I’m not going to whine anymore [laughing]. Whining is for writers among other writers in bars.

In one of your blog posts, you said “The most exciting period for an author is right before the book is released.

Once a book is released you get hit with reality. Which is how poorly its selling and how nobody wants to talk to you about the book and no one is showing up at the book stores. Beforehand you can have all the fantasies in the world. It’s like fantasizing your perfect lover — its always better in the fantasy than reality. I think a lot of authors that have books coming out should really stop a month before the book comes out and enjoy it. Celebrate the fact you’ve finished your book, celebrate the fact that its coming out in two weeks. Because once it comes out you’re going to be disappointed in some way or another.

Your father was a Chinese chef, what is the dish that he would prepare that you’ve either mastered or tried to master?

My father could turn any cut of fish into the most delicious meal. And I have no idea how he did it. And I’ve never, never mastered the art of cooking fish well.

So what food dish are you best known for?

Tacos, I’m pretty good at making tacos. I make my own tortillas.

I hear you’re working on a vineyard.

Yes, we have some wine grapes — the reds [grapes] bit the dust last winter but the white grapes seem to be doing ok.

What will be the name of your vineyard.

Well we already have a name because we used to have donkeys. So its going to be called Long Ears Vineyard. I don’t know if it will be drinkable, but it’ll be there [laughs].

What advice would you give an aspiring writer?

Live a full life. I feel a lot of my writing got better after I had children, after I experienced life and I experienced what it was to lose something. Having different experiences, having been a doctor and being a mom — all these things ended up making the writing much more interesting.