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110 of 117 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Bad villains return, but weak terrorist plot not much fun, November 16, 2004
This review is from: London Bridges (Alex Cross Novel) (Hardcover)
This is the tenth in Patterson's Detective (now FBI special envoy) Alex Cross series, and from the outset, we would surmise that if you are not a faithful follower of the previous nine, you will be lost. First, both central villains are reprised from earlier books (the "Weasel" from "Pop Goes the Weasel"; and the "Wolf" from "Big Bad Wolf"), but it's not so clear how or why they are in cahoots. The Weasel in specific gets bumped off so unceremoniously that we almost wonder why he was even included in this novel. Second, and worse, the brief scenes featuring Alex's little boy and his mother Christine, Alex's current squeeze Jamilla, and his ex-partner Sampson, etc. etc., were so sketchy that the uninformed reader might think these segments irrelevant filler.
Couple that with an incredulous plot wherein the Wolf is leading the presidents of four countries around by their noses, almost a trite post-9/11 recital of terror with Al Queda thrown in every few chapters just for effect; it soon becomes clear this is not one of Patterson's better efforts. The storyline is as usual reeled out in short, three-page chapters, with action galore. But we are given so little meat, so little background, so little motivation to care, that the race toward the end of the book was almost anticlimactic. An overdose of red herrings and gratuitous slayings did little to endear the plot to us either.
While we generally enjoy Patterson's fast-paced thrillers, this one looks too much like a bad screenplay - you know the feeling: it's not that it's horrible, but you wonder later why you spent so much money for so little real entertainment. He can do much better, and so can you.
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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Patterson phoned this one in, November 22, 2004
This review is from: London Bridges (Alex Cross Novel) (Hardcover)
This is by far the weakest of the Alex Cross series. Several things:
1) How does the Wolf go from a sadistic, homocidal, slave-trading maniac to an international, celibate, terrorist?
2) This maniac was blowing up bridges in major cities. He killed about 1,000 people in Paris. The book doesn't even get into the implications of this, except to say that maybe "the French want him as bad, maybe more, than we do".
3) His family was missing for at least 5 days. Where were they? What happened? He doesn't even touch upon this.
4) The Wolf never addresses Cross killing The Weasel. Hell, Patterson barely touches upon it - it's almost a footnote. What the...?.
Of course, Patterson left it wide-open for a sequel... "The Wolf is dead... at least that's what I told myself over and over again until I believed it". Something like that. But I tell you, I could almost care nothing about a sequel. I'm guessing that "The Wolf" is really an organization of some kind, but, again, who cares at this point? Not me.
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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Tepid & Unsatisfying, November 13, 2004
This review is from: London Bridges (Alex Cross Novel) (Hardcover)
If you look back through James Patterson's celebrated Alex Cross series, you'll find some of the finest thrillers written in the past decade. Along Came a Spider, Kiss the Girls, Pop Goes The Weasel, and Roses are Red are all prime examples of a talented writer at the height of his career. Unfortunately, Roses are Red was the last entry in this series that truly captured the essence of the Alex Cross character, and everything that's come after has been mediocre at best, with London Bridges being no exception.
The story picks up right where The Big Bad Wolf left off. Cross is working for the FBI tracking the Wolf, the most ruthless predator he's dealt with in his long career. To complicate matters, the Wolf has joined forces with the Weasel, a villian from previous Cross novel Pop Goes the Weasel. After blowing a small Nevada town off the map, the duo holds four major cities hostage, demanding a multi-billion dollar ransom. Naturally, it's up to good old Alex Cross and his team of FBI agents to put a stop to their diabolical scheme.
When the series started, Alex Cross tracked serial killers, expertly piecing together clues to solve crimes that baffled other detectives. Seemingly overnight, he seems to have switched his focus to combating world espionage. It's not that the writing itself is bad, the problem lies in the fact that the plot is so contrived and unrealistic, readers can't help but think "yeah, right". And isn't it interesting that with each new novel, Patterson describes the villian as Cross' most formitable foe??? Formitable or not, the Weasel served absolutely no purpose here. His role in the story seemed like nothing more than a cheap way to win back fans who have long since abandoned this lukewarm series.
No matter what reviews say, Patterson fans will devour this new novel in one or two sittings hoping for some kind of improvement over his last dozen or so novels. Sadly, they won't find any improvement here. Only a mediocre thriller that makes them long for the days when Patterson's books were fantastic.
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