After Patterson retired from advertising in 1985, he devoted his time to writing.[1] The novels featuring his character Alex Cross, a forensic psychologist formerly of the Washington D.C. Police Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation who now works as a private psychologist and government consultant, are his most popular and the top-selling U.S. detective series in the past ten years. Patterson has written 71 novels in 33 years.[2] He has had 19 consecutive #1 New York Times bestselling n