Copyright 2001 by James Patterson. Published by Warner Books, Inc., New York.
This is not so much of a review as a rant. WTF is wrong with James Patterson? Why is he a popular author? If you recall I characterized his “Sunday at Tiffany’s” as “dreck.” This, too, is dreck. But this time he can’t shift the blame to a co-author; it all falls on him.
I didn’t finish the book – I tossed it about a third of the way through. While it is possible that it would have gotten better, I doubt it. Dreck just doesn’t improve.
This is the 7th in his very popular series of books featuring Alex Cross, a criminal psychologist and widowed father who in this case gets called in to consult on a series of gruesome murders in which the perps seem to be vampires. Corpses left hanging from their ankles, drained of blood like a deer about to be gutted. A lot of corpses. A third of the way through and I think the body count was in double digits.
My dislike of this book has very little to do with the gruesome deaths; I am ok with that. But it seemed to me that Patterson was running up the body count because he enjoyed it and had to reach his quota of pages. None of the murders moved the plot to a conclusion; it was all just gratuitous gore. And the perps were being stupid. Any half-witted detective would have gotten some good clues in these cases. For example, one of the murders is the pilot of a skyjump plane. Yes, the perps murder her, suck her blood and then jump before the plane crashes. Um… when was the last time you went up in a skyjump plane without showing ID and signing a release? The jumpers all have to pack their own parachutes, too, I believe. Did that happen in this case? Nope, they just handed over $20, were given pre-packed parachutes and off they went. Nobody saw two men parachuting from a plane that was spiraling into the ground? And they didn’t plan the landing spot – they could have come down in the middle of a desert or in front of a police station. Patterson wants us to believe that they could get away without leaving a clue from this outrageous and poorly planned homicide. Ridiculous. Patterson didn’t care about making the scene realistic; he just wanted to get straight to the gore. Lazy. Sloppy.
I should give this book an “incomplete” since I didn’t finish it. But I feel comfortable giving it a 2 out of 10. Dreck.