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He's the son of best-selling crime novelists Jonathan Kellerman and Faye Kellerman, so there's no ignoring debut author Jesse Kellerman's literary bloodline.
But critics haven't exactly been overwhelmed. Despite decidedly mixed reviews of his new Sunstroke (Putnam, $24.95), Kellerman, 27, laughs off any notion that he's cashing in on his lineage.
"It's not as though I decided to sit down and write a mystery novel so I could capitalize on my parents' success," he says. "I'm crass, but not that crass. Writing is just something I've always done. It's just kind of the reality of who I am."
And why choose the genre in which his parents excel?
"The mystery form was very helpful for me as a beginning writer, because mystery novels and suspense novels have a beginning, a middle and an end."
Sunstroke was inspired by an event he heard about from his mother-in-law. The head of a law firm went on vacation to Mexico, had a car accident, called to say he was fine and was found dead days later. His secretary went to retrieve the body only to learn it had been cremated.
"It was a weird, shady situation. No one knows what happened. No one knows how he died or if he's even dead. That got me thinking."
Kellerman also is a playwright. His Things Beyond Our Control just finished a run in New York.
Kellerman lives in New York with his wife, Gabriella, a medical student. As a teenager, he began writing and producing plays, some of them in his front yard. After attending Harvard, he earned a master's degree in fine arts from Brandeis and in 2003 won the Princess Grace Award for promising young playwrights.
For now, however, he's focusing on his book tour and the inevitable questions about his mom and dad.
"When your parents are well-known, it's one of the things you get used to. It's hard to get frustrated with people asking about my parents because, right now, that's all they know about me."
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