RICOCHET the movie, based on my book by the same title, was recently filmed in New Orleans, substituting for Savannah. It will air on TNT on November 30th. It stars John Corbett, Julie Benz, Gary Cole, Kelly Overton, and Haaz Sleman. I had the pleasure of spending a couple of days on the set, and, while most of the time I was in the way, I managed to mix and mingle with this excellent cast. Screenwriter Donald Martin incorporated much of my dialogue from the book into the script. It’s thrilling, hearing pros like these giving voice to lines of dialogue that I’ve written.

John is a sweetheart – exactly as I hoped he would be. He’s also got a wicked sense of humor. Julie is gorgeous. Kelly, as we discovered while there, is the god-daughter of one of my best friends! We had no idea. Small world! I got to watch them film a “nude” scene with Gary, although he was actually wearing a pair of shorts under the sheet. In the next day’s scene, he was wearing only a bathrobe. I teased him, saying, “I haven’t seen you fully dressed since I got here.” To which he replied, “Hey, you wrote it.” Sadly, I didn’t get to meet Haas because he wasn’t in the scenes they were filing while I was there. I understand he’s such a sweet guy to be playing such a nasty villain as Savich. But that’s a tribute to his acting ability.

Remember I had a “cameo” in Lifetime Network’s SMOKE SCREEN? Only one line, but, in my opinion, it was brilliantly delivered … I was hoping to have a cameo in this movie as well. I was even promised one. But, unfortunately, there was no part for me in the scenes they were filming. However, they needed a detective to be in the background of a scene in the judge’s house following a shooting. The detective is questioning Gary Cole (in his bathrobe), who’s playing the judge. Well. . .

They picked my husband to be the detective! We’d been trying our best to stay out of the way of these very busy people, and several times they’d had to ask us, patiently, to please stand aside. So when the assistant director came up to me and asked, “What’s your husband’s name?” I immediately thought, “Oh dear, what did he destroy?”

“Why do you need to know?” I asked.

The a.d. said, “He’s going to be in the movie. Wardrobe!”

And in about ten minutes, they had transformed Michael into a detective. He even had a notepad and a shiny badge attached to his belt. (They also gave him a play pistol, but they took it away from him when he started twirling it like a cowboy and asking about his motivation. The director told him his motivation was to get it right the first time so they could wrap the scene.) So. . .watch for him. He really did look HOT playing a detective!