Die Again
Die Again is 11th book in the Rizzoli & Isles series, seven tourists from around the world fly into Botswana for the holiday of a lifetime. Met in the wilderness by a bush guide, they drive off into the Okavango Delta... and are never seen again.
Six years later, Jane and Maura investigate the murder of a big-game hunter who has been hung and dressed like the animals he used to kill. The clues lead back to what happened to that tragic safari party years earlier. One of the tourists survived -- and she may be the only one who can help Jane and Maura catch this killer. But first Jane must convince her to leave her hiding place in Africa.
Please tell us about the characters of Jane Rizzoli and Maura Isles.
Jane is a tough, smart, brash homicide detective. I based her on the real-life female cops I've met. Dr. Maura Isles is scientific, logical, and very private -- quite a bit like me. They are very unlike each other, but over the course of working cases together they've come to respect each other and have even become devoted friends.
How much did your work as a physician help you to make your books accurate in terms of emergency and autopsy rooms?
A great deal. I don't think I could write as realistically about medicine if I had not trained as a medical doctor myself. I know how doctors think, and I can use that insight whenever I write from Maura's point of view.
How did you feel when you found out that your books would be made into a TV show?
Mostly a sense of disbelief! I never imagined it would actually come to fruition, and when I first got the call from the TV producer, I assumed it would all fall apart during development. So when they filmed the pilot episode, and then it was picked up as a series, and then it was renewed for additional seasons, I kept feeling amazed that nothing had gone wrong!
You are a keen traveller, so where is your favourite place to be?
I love traveling to ancient sites, so Turkey and Italy are special favourites of mine. In Turkey, you can walk ancient cities and be alone among the ruins -- except for a few stray goats.
What is the most fascinating thing you have learned in your recent travels about ancient cultures and natural phenomena?
I was recently in Istanbul, and had the chance to walk through a very old section where many Jews settled in centuries past. It's a place of narrow streets and falling-down buildings, but you could feel the history everywhere.
What is next for you?
I am finishing up a book called PLAYING WITH FIRE, which is not part of the Rizzoli & Isles series. It's about a woman violinist who buys an old music manuscript in a Rome antique store. Every time she plays this beautiful waltz, her 3-year-old daughter does something horrible. She kills the cat. She stabs her mother. The woman must track down the history of this music, which she believes is haunted. Her search leads her to a terrible time in history -- wartime Venice, and the Italian holocaust.