Camden novelist Tess Gerritsen is reaching out to fans of her thriller crime series to raise money for Alzheimer’s research.
The New York Times best-selling author launched a crowdsourced campaign to raise more than $50,000 to fund research into the disease, which struck her father, at The Scripps Research Institute in California.
Gerritsen launched a similar campaign in 2013.
She called on fans of “Rizzoli & Isles,” her popular books and the inspiration for a TNT television series, to donate online to her “War on Alzheimer’s” campaign. A few fans who donate will win a chance to name characters in her next “Rizzoli & Isles” novel, set for release in 2016.
“Watching my father lose his identity as he struggled with Alzheimer’s is the most devastating experience our family has been through,” Gerritsen said in a news release. “This campaign allows us to support the heroic scientists battling this terrifying disease and brings us closer to finding a cure. I truly believe we are almost there.”
Her 2013 “War on Alzheimer’s” campaign raised more than $50,000, and it offered donors the chance to win naming rights in her novel “Die Again,” published in December 2014.
A physician-turned-medical crime writer, Gerritsen pledged to match $25,000 to encourage participation and beat the previous campaign total.
