'Law & Order' Meets Tom Clancy In Dick Wolf's First Novel
If Dick Wolf's record in television is any indication, his debut novel, The Intercept, could be the first of dozens.
These days, Wolf says, episodes of the Law & Order franchise he created run or rerun an average of 109 times a week. He jokes with NPR's Robert Siegel that one secret to the series' longevity is how many of the shows originally aired at 10 p.m.
"The reason it repeats so well, in my opinion," he says, "is because half the audience has fallen asleep and can't remember: How does this end?"
Wolf has spent years shepherding some of the best actors and writers in New York. He's seen his creation branch out from Law & Order to Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, which is still on the air, and Law & Order: Criminal Intent. But he says writing novels is, in some ways, different.
"I'd say the biggest difference is that you don't have 140 other people to depend on," he says. "One way to describe it is, it's the old dream of, you know, you walk out onstage at your high school and you're completely naked. ... It's, you know, you pays your money and takes your chances, because you hope for a certain type of reaction to the book and you hope it's not, 'Gee, you should really stay in television.' "
Finding Inspiration In Real Life And In Fiction
Wolf's The Intercept is a thriller set in New York after the killing of Osama bin Laden. Its hero is Detective Jeremy Fisk, of the NYPD Intel Division. According to Wolf, the book picks up where a Law & Order project left off after Sept. 11.