My biggest complaint is that around page 300, I discovered that Cross, the main character, is African American, not white like I'd assumed. And it was a fair assumption: Patterson is on the back cover of the book, and he sure looks like a white guy to me. My problem isn't with the character's race, it's with having to readjust my mental picture of him ¾ of the way through the book. Seems like something an author would want to mention just a little earlier, perhaps.
Cross should have been a familiar character, but I read a LOT of books. Patterson's other Alex Cross novels, in order, are:
Along Came a Spider
Kiss the Girls
Jack & Jill
Cat & Mouse
Pop Goes the Weasel
Roses are Red
Violets are Blue
Four Blind Mice
The Big Bad Wolf
London Bridges (due out in November)
The main plot was sort of cool. It revolves around a team of ex-Vietnam Ranger villains who are hired assassins with a twist-they frame other soldiers for their kills. The wheels of justice move more quickly in the military than the rest of the civilized world, evidently. Several men have already been executed for crimes they didn't commit. Cross and his partner/sidekick John Sampson, are on the case.
Side plots include Cross struggling with a decision centering on accepting an FBI job, worrying about his aging grandmother, and a budding romance with a homicide detective on the other side of the country. Sampson also finds love and the hot dating scenes thrown in about every fourth chapter are painfully icky. It feels like Patterson is trying hard to appeal to female readers-his resource was a stack of Danielle Steele novels and a box of Calgon.
The killers, aka Three Blind Mice, have individual personalities and are almost interesting. They videotape their violent activities and paint the victims red, white and/or blue. This must be Patterson appealing to his male readers with lots of testosterone and psycho-manly man stuff, like raping and killing girls in a brothel.
The Associated Press said Patterson "writes thrillers as if he were building roller coasters." Maybe so, but this was more like a ride on the Wild Mouse. Lots of twists and turns, but no depth. I'd suggest skipping this one.
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