James Patterson's "Run For Your Life" Quiz

Answer: Someone was killed in a hostage situation

The novel began with Detective Bennett trying to negotiate a hostage situation. A young, scared criminal was holed up inside his home in Harlem, holding his grandmother, great-aunt and -uncle, and two young children hostage. Detective Bennett finally convinced the suspect to come out, but when he and his hostages emerged, a sniper took the young guy out.

It was not, however, a police sniper - they never found out who it was - but every witness and lookie-loo at the scene assumed that it was, and there was immediate media backlash over the NYPD killing a young man while he was surrendering.

Answer: Ten

Michael Bennett has ten adopted children, from all ethnic backgrounds, ranging in age from thirteen to four. He and his wife, Maeve, had absolutely fallen in love with their first adopted children, and kept taking more in, wanting to help as many children in need as possible. Maeve, unfortunately, passed away in the first Patterson novel featuring Michael Bennett, "Step on a Crack", and he is now on his own, with the help of a young nanny Mary Catherine, in raising the children.

Answer: A young girl in a subway station

As he went to start working on his plan, the Teacher went to Penn Station. While there waiting for a train, he became irritated by a young girl talking on her cell phone. When he saw the train approaching, he pushed the girl, sending her flying onto the tracks. A man nearby rescued her just in time, and an older lady started screaming that she'd seen him push her. He told the other witnesses that the lady was crazy and he ran away, with no one pursuing him.

He did also stop to talk to a young mother with a stroller, but he simply just insulted her a bit and went on his way.

Answer: All of the kids got a terrible flu

In addition to dealing with a psycho killer on the loose, Detective Bennett also had ten sick, vomiting kids to contend with. The problem of the sick kids started on the night after the hostage-situation-gone-bad. Michael returned home to find four of his kids throwing up into the bathtub while the nanny, with big rubber gloves and a face mask on, mopped up everywhere else they'd thrown up. Michael took over puke patrol for the night while Mary Catherine got some sleep, and then they were both at it the next day as more of the kids got sick. On this first day of Michael staying home to look after his kids, he got the phone call from the police commissioner personally asking (demanding) him to investigate the Teacher case.

At this point, the Teacher had committed three offenses - pushing the girl in front of the subway, and two murders.

Answer: A maitre d' at an upscale restaurant

The maitre d' was actually the Teacher's second murder victim. The first had been a sales clerk at an expensive Ralph Lauren store. For the first murder, the Teacher had dressed like a street-savvy teenager, in baggy jeans and a Mets jersey. In one move designed to confuse witnesses and police, by the time he got to the restaurant to kill the maitre d', only a short while later, the Teacher had completely changed his look and was now disguised as a bike messenger.

He and maitre d' stepped into the restaurant's coatroom, under the guise of the Teacher having a very important, but private message to deliver.

The Teacher shot the maitre d', left the restaurant on his bike and was long gone before anyone even knew someone had been killed.

Answer: He's a priest

Michael's grandfather is Father Seamus, a Catholic priest. Like the nanny Mary Catherine, Seamus tries to help Michael with his unruly bunch of kids as much as possible. Michael explained in the book, when one of his kids was confused, that Seamus joined the priesthood late in life, after his wife died and his children were grown.

He assured the child, that, yes, this is allowed. In "Run For Your Life", Seamus spent a fair amount of time hiding in the dark in his church (for example, underneath the altar), trying to catch a thief who was stealing from the church donation box.

The thief ended up being Eddie, one of Michael's young kids.

Answer: Flight attendant

The Teacher, with the cover story of a being a smitten suitor of the French flight attendant, entered the hotel and asked at the front desk whether she'd checked out yet. The front desk clerk advised him to wait for the lady on the couches in front of the elevator.

When the group of Air France flight attendants stepped off the elevator, he approached the one he was interested in and talked to her for a moment, before shooting her with a gun he'd concealed in a bunch of roses. He then quickly exited the hotel, as the doorman hadn't worked out yet that someone had been killed.

However, he hadn't gotten very far from the hotel when the police pulled up and the doorman pointed him out as the shooter. He then had to run down to a subway platform, and ended up getting away, but not before shooting two subway cops on the train.

Answer: Three dead bodies

Detective Bennett and his colleagues found a gruesome murder scene at the Gladstone household. Erica Gladstone, whom they later found out was Thomas' ex-wife, was dead in her bed, and her two daughters were dead in the bathroom. The detectives theorized that Gladstone had killed his wife and daughters (turned out to be step-daughters) and then had gone on a killing spree, murdering those who had wronged him in the past. Thomas had come from a poor background, and had married into a very wealthy family.

Many people in Erica's world, including her parents, had never accepted him. The detectives weren't sure how Thomas came to die in the apartment fire in the city, but thought maybe he'd accidentally set off an explosion. In actuality, after losing his job and having his wife leave him, Thomas Gladstone had committed suicide in his new apartment in the city.

His long-lost brother, William Meyer, found Thomas' body and regretted that the brothers had been separated in childhood, with Meyer growing up with many more advantages. Meyer then became the Teacher and set about killing people who had wronged his brother Thomas.

Answer: Bennett's apartment

William Meyer, the Teacher, quickly thought up a plan B when he saw that the police were ready and waiting for him at the Blanchettes' apartment. He went across town to Bennett's apartment, where he held the kids, plus Mary Catherine and Father Seamus, hostage until Bennett got there.

When he did, the Teacher told Bennett the two of them were leaving together to finish carrying out his plan. Bennett was relieved that the kids would be safe, but to be sure that the remaining kids and the adults wouldn't call the police, and also to be sure that Bennett wouldn't try anything to stop the Teacher once they left, Meyer also took Bennett's youngest child, Chrissy, along with them.

Answer: He was going to drive a plane into a building

Meyer had been a fighter pilot in the armed forces, and took Bennett to an airfield where they stole a plane. While they were in the air, Bennett realized that Meyer was planning on crashing the plane into the Blanchettes' apartment building, killing all of them in the process.

However, after making radio contact with Homeland Security, Meyer changed his mind and headed for a much bigger target in Manhattan - the Empire State Building. Inside the plane, Bennett managed to fight Meyer and get the plane steered out over the water instead, and then a Homeland Security plane shot them down and Bennett killed Meyer in the water.