Background
Maxine Paetro was born on April 19, 1946, in Maimi, Florida. She is a daughter Samuel P. and Madeline J. Paetro.
Maxine Paetro was born on April 19, 1946, in Maimi, Florida. She is a daughter Samuel P. and Madeline J. Paetro.
Maxine Paetro attended Jacksonville University.
Prior to her success as a novelist, from 1975 through 1987 Paetro worked as a recruiter and EVP creative department manager at several large advertising agencies in New York City. She credits the high-pressure environment of these jobs as providing her with a great foundation as a writer. She met James Patterson when she was an employment agent and he was looking for his first job as a copywriter in advertising.
Maxine Paetro began her writing career with a series of contributions to women's magazines. She graduated to full-length nonfiction with her first book, How to Put Your Book Together and Get a Job in Advertising, a guide for beginners trying to break into the advertising industry. Paetro moved on to fiction with her first novel, Man share, a story about a single woman, Hannah, who works at a major magazine in New York and aspires to become the features editor.
In an attempt to get the promotion, she pitches a story on the shortage of good, single men in the city, only to have her editor demand that her article includes a solution to the dilemma. People contributor Margot Dougherty called the book "a sometimes amusing fantasy of the single yuppie in semi-crisis." Paetro's follow-up efforts, Babydreams and Windfall, tackle similarly light topics, but with a bit of mystery added to the romantic romps.
In 2005, Paetro began writing the "Women's Murder Club" series with noted crime novelist James Patterson. Their first joint effort, 4th of July, finds Lindsay Boxer, a lieutenant in the San Francisco police department, struggling to solve a series of murders while also facing charges of police brutality.
Maxine Paetro's success was achieved right from the start when she published her first novel How to Put Your Book Together and Get a Job in Advertising in 1979. This book received its fourth revision in 2010 and has been described as the advertising industry bible. Among her novels are eleven that are part of the Women’s Murder Club series (published between 2005 and 2015). All are co-written with James Patterson and all are New York Times #1 best-sellers. Also, Maxine is a number 16 in the Sunday Times Bestseller List.
Paetro also hosts a garden called Broccoli Hall, which was featured in many national magazines. Visitors to Broccoli Hall describe this English-style cottage garden as “incredible,” “inspirational,” “magical”.
(The son of Sandra Dee and Bobby Darin, using his own memo...)
1993(Still recovering from her husband's betrayal, Detective L...)
2017(Detective Lindsay Boxer's investigation into the disappea...)
2019(The Women's Murder Club takes on two deranged killers, bu...)
2010Quotations: "My first novels were explorations into my own deeply-felt questions and issues concerning being a single woman in Manhattan. I was successful in business, less successful in love. My three surrogates and heroines, Hannah, Stevie, and Harrie taught me a lot about love, about men, and about how to tell a story that entertains. It was because of these novels that I decided to leave advertising and work as a full-time writer. I'm so glad I made this decision."
Maxine Paetro enjoys gardening. Her garden, named Broccoli Hall, has been featured in many national magazines, including House and Garden, and is on the Garden Conservancy Open Days Program.
Maxine confessed that she is crazy about her fish, an avid koi aficionado. Koi is a decorative carp that’s been bred by the Japanese for hundreds of years. She is trying to get a different coloration of a standard fish. She has mud ponds for the koi and they are part of her gardens at Broccoli Hall, too.
Paetro is married to former surety bond executive, John A. Duffy, the now founder and CEO of consulting company, Manhattan Bridge, LLC.
In 2005, Maxine collaborated with the author James Petterson for Women’s Murder Club series. They had known each other since 1970 while she was working in advertising agencies.
