VINCE: Obviously the next question is why did we choose to use a pseudonym?

ROSEMARIE: Isn’t it better value for the reader if only one author wrote the book?

V: My concern is if people see two names on the cover, they’ll expect it to be twice as good.

R: The considerations are purely practical. Nobody knows who we are. Unlike a lot of other partnerships, neither of us has a name to trade on.

V: In certain circles we do. The cocktail world –

R: Maybe locally.

V: – and the high-stakes arena of research administration. But that’s not going to help sell a mystery novel, so we made the pseudonym decision on our own and very early.

R: We wrote the book as a team. So much so that we practically have one brain between us.

V: And that brain deserves its own name! Which brings us to the origin of Renee Patrick.

R: We wanted the pseudonym to be related to us. I don’t have a middle name, because my mother said my first name was long enough, thank you. But I took Renee as my confirmation name.

V: A reminder of what a troublemaker you were as a kid, because Saint René was a man, right?

R: Yes. One of the Jesuit martyrs killed by the Iroquois.

V: Wow. That’s kind of a downer, Rose.

R: Hey, I didn’t want to bring it up. But that’s my connection to the name, which also has the advantage of being both male and female.

V: And my middle name is Patrick, so voila. The result sounds like a name a starlet might have been given in Old Hollywood. The way Esther Blodgett becomes Vicki Lester in A Star is Born.

R: Exactly.

V: Classy, but fake.

R: Just like us.