DETECTIVE
JAKE SWANSON’S BIRTH OF
THE
MURDER MOST TV SERIES
By
M. J. HATCH
AUTHOR
OF MURDER MOST BLONDE; MURDER MOST
JUDGMENTAL, and MURDER MOST MERRY
CHAPTER ONE
[blog entry two]
ROBERT
WAGNER CALLS
The voice on the other end of
the line sounded familiar, but I could not place it, even when he introduced
himself.
“Hello,” he said, “This is RJ
Wagner, have I caught you at a bad time?”
I am a lawyer, and I was on a
much needed vacation at my favorite place on the Central Coast of
California—and the name did not ring a bell, other than I had a former client
by the name of Wagoner. It only added to my confusion, leaving me speechless.
Again the voice said, “Hello,
this is Robert Wagner, am I speaking
to M.J. Hatch?”
I was really confused. Yes, I
use M.J. Hatch when writing the Detective Jake Swanson murder mysteries, but I rarely use Hatch, so again I did
not answer.
Finally the voice said, with a
chuckle, “Listen, this is Robert Wagner,
husband to Jill St. John, is this M.J.
writer of that scoundrel Detective
Jake Swanson?’
Suddenly the name and everything
it meant came clear, I was speaking to the Robert Wagner, one of my idols.
My world tilted on its axis, as
I breathlessly answered, “Yes, this is she.”
“Well, young lady, you’re a
hard person to get a hold of,” he said. “I want to talk to you about your Jake Swanson character—I love him!”
By this time I was nearly
fainting, having forgotten to breathe when I realized to whom I was speaking.
But, somewhere from the outer universe I heard my voice, or anyway I think it
was my voice, said, “Cool, I like him too.”
The incredibly rich voice of a
trained actor chuckled and said, “yeah, there’s a lot to like about him.”
Of course I chuckled back, and
then said, “So, what can I do for you?”
“Well, listen,” he said, “I think Jake would make a really great character,
and I want to talk to you about possibly developing a series around him. What
do you think?”
Trying even harder to be cool,
after all, I am from California—land of the terminally cool, I answered, “Cool,
I think that could definitely be arranged.”
And, that is how this
incredible journey began, a simple phone call from Robert Wagner out of the blue.
