Customer Reviews

London Bridges (Alex Cross)

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(26)
3 star:		(56)
2 star:		(78)
1 star:		(134)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

I have read every book by Patterson & this is the first one that I consider unworthy of his past efforts.
Mr. Patterson should be looking over his shoulder for a multitude of reasons - thin plot, convoluted closing, and just not up to par. We bring back the WOLF and the WEASEL and perhaps these "rats" are a reflection of the text.
But an even bigger problem is what Mr. Patterson has done with the pages. A classic example of caveat emptor.
The book is 391 pages but then again, it is not.
FIRST, the font size is much larger so let's assume that reduces the text by 20 pages.
SECOND, the book has a Prologue and 5 Parts. Each one allows for blank pages that total 14 pages included in the total.
THIRD, we have 123 chapters, all of which start mid-page and end mid-page. That deducts another 123 pages from the book.
So we reduce the readable text from 391 pages to 234. And, guess what, the price did not shrink.
This book and the manner in which it is presented is a bummer.
Future books by Patterson, if I read them, will be on the library list so I may save my money for OTHER authors.

James Patterson once knew how to plot and write a great book. He still might, but that is not shows up on the 391 pages of 'London Bridges.'

The story is WEAK, the red herrings and various dodges used by the villian never fully explained or paid off. In the end, the reader is left with a serious of geographical adventures spread over much of Europe and some of the U.S. But it never really adds up to a satisfying conclusion.

Even in Dr. Cross's own head, he vasilates over the importance of his assignment, justaposed against his personal obligations. Parts of New York, London and Paris have been blow to hell and Cross falls prey to self introspection that does not move the story nor add to it.

If you just want to read an Alex Cross novel and can suspend half of your normal expectations, this one's for you to buy as a paperback or rent from a library. The one good thing is that you can read this book as fast as you want and not miss one single thing...they're either not there and the parts that seem to be are not fully connected/explained.And to that extent, the book was an imposter and a cheat.

I picked this book up in the airport for an easy oveseas airplane read. What a piece of trash. Wooden characters. Poor writing. Terrible or non-existent dialogue. The plot itself had promise - perhaps a good screenwriter might do something with it one day. Mr. Patterson certainly did little with it. When the author described exploding bridges and massive bombs devastating central Paris as if he were reading the particulars of an income tax return I wanted to throw the book out the window. Would have, but we were at 36,000 feet.

This book starts ok, with the usual Patterson suspense and building of plots and subplots. Unfortunately, with this book an with the recent Lake House, James has forgotten how to close the deal. It's as if he thinks,"Well, I guess I've written 400 pages, so I better end it." Then he throws in a series of endings, none of which make sense - Alex Cross's family is kidnapped and returned with no real explanation of how this happened, where they were, and what the impact was. Not to mention there is great character build up about the Weasel, and his death is treated as a ho-hum event. Mr. Patterson has lost control of his writing and his books. I think I am done with him.

Despite the presence of all the key elements for a great or even good thriller, 'London Bridges' falls far short. For much of the book the 'good guys' are clueless and at the mercy (such as it is) of the 'bad guy', the almost too blood-thirsty Wolf.

What we get from Alex Cross, instead of investigative work (and his signature introspection), is a whirl-wind tour of our European allies. (By the way, the hill-top village in the south of France is Eze, pronounced like 'Pez'). In earlier books Cross was personally pitted against the bad guys, but in his new role with the FBI he is included due to his deep understanding of the criminal mind. Oh, yeah . . .

Which means, in this book, he's a tag-long, sitting by the sidelines, waiting for others to catch a break in the case . . .

The good guys don't have a clue, so Cross flies around a lot, and visits people. It's not even a chase as nobody knows where the Wolf will strike next. Too much ambiguity.

In 'London Bridges' James Patterson has 'gone Hollywood', substituting pyrotechnics for plot line. Instead of writing something interesting or challenging he shoots someone or blows something up. This can be good in a 'popcorn' movie, but it's slow death in literature.

I will continue to read Patterson, with somewhat less anticipation, if only because he is one of the few remaining mystery writers who can occasionally write a cohesive sentence, even if the action is drawn out, implausible or disjointed.

By the way, many of the lower-rated reviews on this page were more entertaining than 'London Bridges' . . .

I think this is the last Patterson novel I will read. Utter rubbish, badly written (in five minutes?), and just for the paycheque I'd say. The prose includes so many italicised sentences and words: does Patterson want to emphasise EVERYthing you READ, to MAKE YOU UNDERSTAND what he's TRYING TO SAY? Give me a break, I can read already!!!

God, he's taken a huge fall here. Bad plotting, idiotic suppositions, poor flow, and - honestly! - a writing style you'd expect from a (just reasonable) writer as a first attempt at 16 or 17 years old. I'm no writer, but I know I could do better than this crap.

I have no idea how much Patterson or his publishers paid for the editorial reviews included here at Amazon, but they should be ashamed of giving praise to such a contemptible treatment of a (formerly) entertaining writer's fans.

A year or so ago, I read James Patterson's "Violets are Blue" and posted a review stating that it was one of the worst books I had ever read. At that time, I had no intention of reading anything else by Patterson. However, I recently stumbled across "London Bridges" in the library and figured I would give him another try. I learned two things - he has not improved but rather has gotten worse and it didn't help that reading the book was free; it was still lousy.

If I went into all the ways this book is not only bad but offensive, this review would probably exceed Amazon's space limitations. But I will try to summarize some of the many reasons one should avoid it.

First, it is very badly written. The sentences are short and choppy and, for the most part, the thing is written at the 3rd-grade level. Here's a sample sentence from page 357 -"Besides, this was an armed compound, heavily armed." I could have cited similar examples from almost every page. I have seen deeper characterizations in children's books. Naturally, Patterson relies on his predictable short chapters (154 of them in a 391-page book; you do the math) which, frankly, are very annoying. One last thing about the writing - Patterson should try to avoid love scenes. I suggest you read (don't buy the book, just pick it up at the bookstore) pages 318-321 (Chapter 100) and try to avoid giggling; I couldn't.

But maybe the worst aspect of the book is how lazy the plotting is. After all, there are lots of bad writers who can tell a good tale. There are countless examples of just how little thought was given to the story but here are a few. First, one of the big come-ons for the book (at least based on the dust jacket) is that it features the bringing together of two major villains from past novels. However, one of them is disposed of very quickly and rather easily about two-thirds of the way through and is never mentioned again. This despite the fact that he is touted as a clever, dangerous foe who "never makes mistakes." There are incidents that take place that never have any relationship to anything else; early on, the Wolf visits a couple in LA and murders the husband and tortures the wife. There's no mention of that incident ever again and no explanation of who they were or what their relationship to the Wolf was. There are plot points that you are led to believe are significant but go nowhere. For example, much is made of an alleged connection between the Wolf and bridges- why are they the primary focus of his attacks? That is totally dropped and no connection is ever made. Finally, near the end Nana Mama and Alex's children are kidnapped; a few pages later, they are back safe and sound. The whole incident seems completely pointless and goes nowhere; why even include it?

Even with all that I've mentioned (and there is so much more, like the fact that the book drags terribly over the last 100 pages and the ending is ridiculous) possibly the most egregious sin that Patterson commits is that he isn't fair to the reader. One of the key points made endlessly in the book is that no one knows who the Wolf is or what he/she looks like. Fine; that is legitimate. But Patterson cheats by setting up situations in which the reader is led to believe that the Wolf is involved then backs away. For example, on page 360 (Chapter 114), we are told that the Wolf has flown into the New York area for plastic surgery. Throughout the next several pages, one is led to believe that the character is the Wolf, based on what he does, says, and thinks. The next thing we know, Patterson tells us it wasn't the Wolf. It's one thing to throw off your characters but an author has an obligation to pay fair with the readers; in any well-told story, once a twist is revealed, you should be able to go back and see the clues that the author cleverly spread around.

This is a lengthy review. But I wanted to take the time to discuss, in some detail, the flaws of this book. It is a truly bad piece of work in every way and reflects, in my opinion, just how lazy Patterson is getting. He is grinding this stuff out and doesn't care about quality or being fair to those who pay out good money for his novels. I suspect that he is laughing all the way to the bank but if this review stops even one person from buying another James Patterson book, I feel it's been worth it.