Bothari’s #CBR4 Review #10: Cross Fire by James Patterson

I liked this better than my last Alex Cross audio book. Alex seemed smarter in this one, and more willing to think things through before tearing off into the city to chase down a red herring.

There are several different crimes Alex and his cohorts have to solve in Cross Fire: snipers taking out “foxes in the henhouse” – crooked politicians and public figures; someone beating homeless people to death and then carving complicated mathematical formulas on the bodies; and his old nemesis Kyle Craig. The prologue shows us Kyle Craig undergoing plastic surgery to look like an FBI agent, and once you get past the B-movieness of the idea, it’s interesting to see him worm his way into Alex’s investigations to see how close he can get to the man himself.

Alex spends a lot of time worrying about his family; Kyle has been threatening them since he broke out of prison in a previous book. The family stuff works well to humanize Detective Alex Cross, Supercop, but there were several sections of the book that seemed so completely unnecessary to the story that I was confused. A couple characters showed up with “Foreshadowing” stamped all over them, and then were never heard from again. Maybe I should read the next book? But overall I liked the balance of on-duty and off-duty Alex. A quick, easily digestible story, perfect for a road trip.

Bothari’s #CBR4 Review #3: Double Cross by James Patterson

I don’t think I’ve ever read a Patterson book before. I think I’ve seen one of the Alex Cross movies. When Mom loaned me the audio book of Double Cross, I wasn’t expecting much. It’s a pretty straightforward mystery. There are several bad guys to keep recently-retired-but-reluctantly-drawn-back-in detective Cross on his toes, including one who had been previously caught by Cross before escaping in this book. I was a little curious about his backstory but had no problem following along without knowing the whole thing. I probably am not curious enough to go back and find whichever book that is – I lost count at 14 when I looked on Amazon to see how many there were. I definitely didn’t like Cross enough to read 14 more books. He seems to run on impulse, tearing off after whichever clue falls in his lap, even if he knows it’s a trap or a lie. The killer pointedly threatens his family multiple times, but Cross takes no extra precautions to protect them. He even runs off to Montana to check out a lead, leaving his three children with their grandmother. He just doesn’t seem to think things through very well. The story drew me in enough that I usually wished my commute was a little longer so I could hear a little more each day, but didn’t really wow me enough that I have anything to write about. Cross is okay, the mystery’s okay, the writing was about what I expected. Give me Gregor Demarkian any day.

And a note of weirdness about the audio book: there were random music cues added to it. Some little suspensey sounding music when a murder happened, some horribly cheesy Lifetime music during the two sex scenes, and then some random music added random scenes for no reason I could see. A weird distraction, and it’s dangerous to roll your eyes that hard when you’re driving.

Siege’s #CBR4 #2: Cross Fire by James Patterson

In which Siege is sorely disappointed with one of James Patterson’s recent Alex Cross novels.