A Video Message from James Patterson

A Promise from Marshall

Remember April 23, 1985?

It was the day The Coca-Cola Company announced that they were changing the formula for Coke. After 99 years of unparalleled success they decided to tamper with the taste of the world’s best-selling soft drink.

Coke lovers everywhere went crazy. The company was bombarded daily by thousands of angry letters and phone calls. A grassroots movement demanding the return of the old formula swept the country, and 79 days later Coca-Cola realized they had just made the biggest marketing blunder of the century, and they brought old Coke back to the shelves.

I was there. I was one of hundreds of people on an advertising task force working for Coca-Cola at that time.

And if l learned one thing it’s this: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

As I take over the stewardship of NYPD Red I will live by those words. I was in the room the day the series was conceived, and I have lived with Zach Jordan and Kylie MacDonald through every page of every adventure.

NYPD Red has sold close to 2,000,000 copies. That’s not just a string of #1 bestsellers. That’s a legacy… a legacy I promise to keep.

I’m thrilled to have Marshall Karp take on the NYPD RED series—he’s an excellent writer who always manages to surprise readers with the twists and turns of his plotlines. Marshall will do a great job, and the neat thing for me is now when I read the books I’ll have no idea how they end.
—James Patterson