John Lescroart

Bestselling author John Lescroart's new novel is The Hunter.

From his Q & A with J. Sydney Jones:

Let’s start things off with a discussion of your own crime scene. What’s your connection to San Francisco?

San Francisco has always been a special place for me. Growing up on the San Francisco peninsula, I always looked to the city as the location where everything important seemed to happen. I attended college there for a year, and have lived there on four separate occasions, always driven out by the weather. In spite of that, my wife and I are fortunate to have a pied-a-terre now on Russian Hill, and we try to get down there at least a few times each month.

What things about San Francisco make it unique and a good physical setting in your books?

While every place is unique, San Francisco has its own distinctive character that lends itself to fiction. Its topography is truly romantic, its politics Byzantine (to say nothing of just plain bizarre), its food miraculous. Additionally, it is large enough to give the novels a kind of universal spin, and small enough to feel personal.

Did you consciously set out to use your location as a “character” in your books, or did this grow naturally out of the initial story or stories?

I...[read on]

The Page 99 Test: John Lescroart's Betrayal.

--Marshal Zeringue