...here's something interesting, at least for bookworm/reader-geeks who also love a good movie now and then...like me.

While finishing up James Patterson's "Cat & Mouse" while at work earlier this evening, (when I'm bored while at work, reading happens,) I read the following line which began on page 429, and at last fizzled out somewhere towards the top of 430.

"Everything was going crazy again, caroming out of control at the whim of a madman."

I stopped, went back, read it again, and thought, huh..."whim of a madman?" Now where have I heard that one before?

Then it came to me.

I thought back to a scene from one of my favorite action movies. Dennis Hopper in a small room, surrounded in nineteen inch televisions, and if memory serves, a computer or two, each one tuned to a different news channel broadcasting the same horrifying live feed involving a bus, a bomb, and a sinister plot with a pile of cash as the ultimate goal.

Dennis Hopper, playing the role of Howard Payne, ex-police officer with a grudge to settle, listens as one of the broadcasting news reporters describes the live feed as "Out of control on the whim of a madman."

Dennis Hopper laughs and says, "The whim of a madman! I like that!"

The movie's called "Speed."

It hit theaters in mid-summer of 1994. "Cat & Mouse" was released in 1997.

Considering how James Patterson probably averages a hundred million in sales per year with his literary prowess, I won't be pointing fingers anytime soon. For whatever reason, the majority of our reading population fancy those Alex Cross and Max novels to no end. And I guess I've grown fond of Alex running around the country in hot pursuit of all those sinister, over-arching bad guys myself.

Seriously though...from a literary standpoint, the thieving of an entire phrase from a high dollar movie only three years old takes moxie.

But what do I know? Maybe Patterson co-wrote "Speed," and thought to himself, "Hmm, that's catchy. I'm gonna have to use that one again sometime."

Or he watched the movie, liked the line and thought, "Screw it, I'm using it, and if they come after me, I'll throw one of my lawyers and a wallet full 'o cash at em."

Either way, it caught my eye, and earned itself a giggle. Not from Patterson...from Hopper of course. Love that guy.

And naturally, after putting all the pieces together on a "whim," Cross gets the madman in "Cat & Mouse." Oops. Gave it away...