James Patterson's Alex Cross series is the bestselling detective series of all time
James Patterson is one of the best-known and biggest-selling writers of all time. He is the author of some of the most popular series of the past decade: the Women s Murder Club, the Alex Cross novels and Maximum Ride, and he has written many other number one bestsellers. He has won an Edgar Award, the mystery world's highest honour. He lives in Florida with his wife and son.
Any thriller writer, wannabe or actual, would do well to study Patterson's 10th Alex Cross novel. A sequel to last year's The Big Bad Wolf, the book is a model of economy, delivering a full package of suspense, emotion and characterization in a minimum number of words. The story brings back not only Big Bad Wolf's arch-villain, the Russian mobster known as the Wolf, but also an earlier Patterson bad guy, the Weasel, recruited by the Wolf to further his plans. These involve extorting Western powers for billions of dollars to avoid major terrorist attacks on New York, London, Washington and Frankfurt-attacks the Wolf offers a preview of by wiping out a town in Nevada by aerial bombardment after hustling its citizens to safety, then by doing the same to a village in England without evacuating the populace. The novel features numerous exciting scenes, most notably one in which Cross is kidnapped, then shackled to a suitcase atomic bomb. It's not the steady tension, the numerous colorful locales, the reliable action climaxes nor the novel's effective doomsday gloss that makes this thriller work so well, though. It is, of course, the characters, and in Cross, Patterson continues to elaborate his finest hero, cerebral yet emotional, dedicated yet flawed, caught between duty and family. Regrettably, the novel is marred in its final chapters by a series of surprises that skirt playing unfair with the reader, but most Patterson fans probably won't mind and they are legion enough to send this to the top of the charts, for good reason. (Nov. 8) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
It's Alex Cross vs. the Big Bad Wolf again, even as terrorists grab major world cities from New York to Frankfurt. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
'If there really were human superheroes, Alex Cross would be at the head of the class...and, with each instalment in the series, Patterson makes sure his superhero gets bigger and better while at the same time becomming more vulnerable.' - New York Times'Patterson knows where our deepest fears are buried... There's no stopping his imagination.' - New York Times Book Review
|
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
