Catherine Tramell

Living... in a Victorian mansion in San Francisco, where she hangs a few of her Picassos. Catherine also has a Stinson beach house, but she keeps that for friends.

Profession... best-selling crime novelist. Her latest thriller was about a retired rock-and-roll star who is murdered by his girlfriend – a scenario too close to the recent murder of Johnny Box, whom the police are starting to believe she killed.  

Interests... spending time with famous real-life murderers, allegedly for research purposes. Hazel Dobkins, who stabbed her husband and children just to see what it felt like, is one of her friends. She's helped Catherine understand homicidal impulse. Catherine's also close to Roxy, who killed her brothers with her father's razor when she was younger because they got on her nerves.

Relationship Status... bisexual and single. She claims to have only ever loved Manuel, a middleweight who was killed in front of her during a prizefight. Since then, it's been a string of mostly meaningless flings.

Challenge... getting Nick, a detective, to leave her alone. He wants to pin Johnny's death on her, but she says he’s got nothing – no physical evidence, no motive. There's just the book that she wrote eight months before it happened. Catherine claims that anybody who read the book could have done it.

Personality... confident. She has it all, and she knows it. She is gorgeous, sexy, brilliant, and incredibly wealthy. You just don’t know if she is ever telling the truth. After all, she lies for a living – that’s how she comes up with such great bestsellers.