There's a pretty fair chance that even if you only own a few books, one of them is probably a James Patterson novel.

He's written 28 books in the popular series featuring detective Alex Coss. And that's just one of the series of books has James Patterson writes.

He writes series novels. He writes stand-alone mystery thrillers. He rites books for young readers. He writes children's books. And he's written several non-fiction books.

Patterson has sold over 300 million books worldwide. That's also made him one of America's richest authors. Several of his books have been made into movies.