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Patterson Makes it Personal in new
Cross Title
I, Alex Cross
James Patterson
Hardcover, 400 pages, $27.99
ISBN: 0316018783
Little, Brown And Company
By Vince Lovato, Mysterious Correspondent
I, Alex Cross is another age-turner from James Patterson with an interesting twist: This time it’s personal.
When his niece is killed in particularly gruesome fashion, Cross is thrust into an uncomfortable mystery that leads him to discover lurid details about his niece’s lifestyle. More conflicting are the secrets of powerful people who do anything to keep them that way. And, of course, this brings Cross and his main squeeze to the White House and the brink of a discovery that could affect the entire world.
Patterson always keeps his readers on their toes and in this case he does it by thrusting Alex Cross into an emotional investigation, compounded by the physical collapse of his beloved Nana, that causes him to question his motivation and instincts.
This book, which reads more like a psychological thriller and morality play, is a bit slower read than most and all the better for it.
Like all of Patterson’s novels, it often comes down to his prose, his ability to put people in immediate and desperate situations. These are a few graphs from the first page:
“Hannah stumbled and staggered forward until her hands found another tree trunk to hold on to. She leaned her aching body into it, waiting for the strength to take another breath. And then to move another burst of steps forward.
Keep going, or you'll die right here in these woods. It's that simple.
The bullet lodged somewhere in her lower back made every movement, every breath an agony, more pain than Hannah had ever known was possible. It was only the threat of a second bullet, or maybe worse, that kept her on her feet and going at all.”
If this is your first Alex Cross novel, you might feel like a party crasher as the knowledge and emotional attachment to the characters is important to the tale. So you might want to read other Alex Cross adventures to warm up to the family.
By the way, the paperback on this is already out and you can get one for less than half the price of the hardbound.
Dean Koontz'
Dead & Alive; Frankstein Brilliant
Dead and Alive: Frankenstein, Book Three
By Dean Koontz
Bantam Books
Paperback, 352 pages
Guest Review by Vince Lovato
WARNING: Don’t waste your time reading this review when you could be reading Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein series.
If you must read a review, here it is:
Anytime an artist takes on a real classic I always fear they can’t add anything to the original and the new work can pale in comparison.
But Dean Koontz took on one of the all-time classic pieces of literature and flung it into our new century.
Koontz – who I have been reading for more than 20 years – is at his absolute best in this three-book series. He does not wonder from the Shelly masterpiece but adds to its insight. Despite his ability to write in an efficient and mesmerizing way, his prose is not clipped. His characters are well defined and we get to see the world through each one’s point of view. Koontz adds to the Promethean context that challenges the very core of God, humanity and science.
Like the very best of literature, Koontz entertains and enlightens. His heroes are flawed but skilled and guileless and his villains are complex and often pitiful.
There are many gray shades in these three dark-yet-uplifting novels.
Quit wasting your time reading this review and read the third book. If you haven’t read the first two, run, don’t walk, and read them first.