Customer Reviews

Swimsuit

5 star:		(45)
4 star:		(27)
3 star:		(45)
2 star:		(33)
1 star:		(148)

 

 

I read this via audio book and honestly, it was NOT the best Patterson book. As a matter of fact, if that had been my first Patterson book, I wouldn't have gone back for more. The book is basically broken into 3 parts.

The first third we are treated to horrendous descriptions of rape, torture and decapitation. Much too graphic and much too disgusting for just casual reading. The killer is pretty good because he's so rutheless, but some of the people that end up killed are just so unexpected and seem like we wasted time getting to know them only to have them murdered within the first third of the book.

The second third of the book is a cat and mouse type situation between the killer and the novelist.

The final third is more cat and mouse between the killer, the novelist and an underground group. And then *POOF* its all wrapped up in a neat little bow and its done. The ending was such a cop-out I was shocked. I kept thinking that maybe I didn't have the complete audio book because as I was nearing the end so much was still going on and still unanswered. But of course, the epilogue wrapped it all up and stuffed it in a box.

So I suffered through the must vile descriptions of murder and barely anything really happened and then it was over. I was disappointed, to say the least.

Swimsuit, James Patterson's latest piece of dreck to be published, starts off with a swimsuit model mysteriously disappearing, leaving no trace of herself behind. Shortly after she goes missing, her parents receive a chilling call late at night from someone telling them that bad things have happened to her. After receiving the call they immediately book a flight to Hawaii - were the photo shoot was taking place - and with the help of ex-cop turned writer for the LA Times Ben Hawkins, they begin to search for her, hoping that the worst wont come.

Words cannot describe how awful this book was, and using the word awful doesn't seem to be a fair word to use either. Before even finishing the description on the book jacket, you can already tell were this book is going to be heading: the daughter is obviously dead, the parents will find her, and everything from that point on will be boring. The book even saves us the trouble from this by having the daughter killed within the first three chapters of the book. Sure the book was predictable, but the fact that we already know what happens in the beginning takes away any thrill or mystery to the story that could have been there if we hadn't known before-hand.

The story itself was tiring and trite. The only thing that was going on was some guy going around, picked up women, spiked their drinks, and then making a pornographic snuff film with them so he can sell the tape to a group of rich people in Europe. Yes, you read that right, a pornographic snuff film. For those that don't know, a snuff film is were someone tapes them self killing someone else, however this killer added a twist to this by having porno in it. It wasn't exactly porno per se, but it involved him hog-tying the woman down, raping them, and then proceeding to decapitate her with a knife, ignoring the fact that someone would probably hear large amounts of screaming coming from the hotel room, but Patterson skips this by not mentioning it, ever. Nice. Being a guy, I still found it somewhat offensive to a woman's intelligence in general, because according to Patterson, a woman's IQ doesn't exist if she's on vacation. Honestly, any woman reading this right now, can you honestly say that if some random guy were to walk up to you and offer you the world, would you go with him? Let me answer for you, no, you probably wouldn't, and yet he manages to pick up well over ten women. Apparently they don't bother to read the news either about a random guy doing this to women either because apparently people don't read about news anymore either.

While the two things listed above make the book bad, what does this book in is the ending. You'll just be sitting there reading the book when all of sudden, it just comes to an abrupt halt, like Patterson himself was reaching through the pages to give you the finger and tell you that he didn't feel like finishing the book. The sheer stupidity of this jumps out from the book and sears the readers eyes. Apparently its too much effort to add a few more pages, but I guess we'll never know what happens.

To sum it up, this book sucked. The story went nowhere, the characters were stupid and you could care less about them, and the killings - while somewhat original as I have never read this before in a book - were over the top with too mucn violence and unnecessary raping. There's a fine line between just killing someone, to cutting off their freaking head. A definite skip.

Quite possibly, you'll see this book next to a towel and sunscreen. You'll see someone on a chaise lounge with a cold drink nearby. And they'll be reading this book at poolside or on a stretch of beach.

They'll be reading about Henri Benoit, master of disguise and master of disaster, one of the most sinister characters in contemporary fiction. He murders people due to a vicious inner compulsion and for the big bucks his super-rich clients pay him. These clients enjoy watching people who are brutalized and murdered. Henri films his murders and disseminates the film via the Internet.

The book has a lot of graphically described lust. A lot of graphically described violence. There's crude language. The authors, James Patterson and Maxine Paetro, set much of the story in exclusive hotels. Fine wine, fine food; and, often, rotten people.

The plot spins off of the kidnapping of a beautiful young swimsuit model who has journeyed to Hawaii for a photo shoot. Her fate and the frantic fears of her parents launch the tale.

It's certainly a quick read. The prose flows very well, particularly the bit set in the trailer in the middle of the forbidding Joshua Tree National Park. It took me about ten hours of fairly concentrated reading to finish the novel.

Some of it is goofy. Much of it doesn't make a lot of sense: an L.A. Times reporter/failing novelist/fired cop is coerced to put together a soulless killer's autobiography. Sure....

But I don't think people will buy this book because they want a scholarly treatise on the criminal mind. People who buy this book are not looking for airtight logic. They want a little escape. Readers get to go to Hawaii, Paris, Amsterdam, and the Swiss Alps. Eat exotic food with names they can't pronounce. That sort of thing.

I must preface this review by saying that I have read every book by James Patterson. Some were really good ie Along Came a Spider and Sail some were OK ie like Beach Road and The Jericho Commandment, some were even sweet ie Sam's Letters to Jennifer and Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas and then there are some all time bombs like The Jester and SWIMSUIT. Now, I must also say that I am from a generation of readers who were taught and then expected to finish every book they begin BUT I got over that a long time ago and thank goodness I did.

Now, a funny thing happened to me on the way to reading this book. To begin with I was in the midst of reading another book when I was notified by the library that this reserved book was waiting for me. I immediately put down the other book, ran to the library and began reading Swimsuit last night. It doesn't take much to get into Patterson's books and I managed to finish 100 pages before going to sleep. This morning I woke up to this niggling family that something was not all together right in my reading world. I thought about this a bit and then finally admitted to myself that I was terribly BORED with this title. Gratutitous violence, poorly presented characters and a plot which goes round and round is hardly ever my thing and I was beginning to think about closing this title. But I must also admit that I suffer from reader's guilt and wasn't ready to throw in the towel quite yet so I decided to do something I rarely do until I finish a book and that was to read some of the reviews and I found myself agreeing with the reviews and have now invoked a reader's right to close the book and return it to the library.

Now, I'm not about to give up on Mr. Patterson. As a matter of fact, just the other night, I reserved a slew of his future titles (for the most part I rally inhale the Alex Cross books), but I also am hoping that perhaps Mr. Patterson writes fewer titles, perhaps he writes them by himself and there is a quick return to good characters and exciting themes.

Finally, I find it really unfair for reviwers to complain about Amazon and the prices of the Kindle version of books. The reviews area of Amazon is eactly that, an area where readers can not only review books but read other reviews. It really quite unfair for readers eager for a review to plough through these reviews to find so many one star reviews which have almost nothing or little to do with the books themselves.

And now I will return to the book I was previously reading and hope I continue to enjoy this title, Shadows Still Remain by Peter deJonge, who ironically co-authored The Beach House with James Patterson.

When a book written by a premier author requires the kind of promotions budget that "Swimsuit" has, I wonder whether the publisher believed it produced too many copies of a pedestrian effort.

James Patterson's latest follows the story of Ben Hawkins, a best-selling author, reporter for the Los Angeles Times, and former Seattle police officer. Hawkins reports on the story of a missing supermodel on location in Hawaii for the swimsuit edition for a popular sports magazine. Hawkins' investigative instincts get the better of him as he discovers the model has been murdered by a serial killer who uses the name, Henri Benoit.

It turns out that Benoit is one sick puppy. A master of disguise, Benoit has actually been retained to make a series of snuff films for a group of similarly sick, but very wealthy puppies to whom Benoit refers to as the "Peepers." The Peepers actually call themselves "The Alliance." After Benoit kills a couple of the swimsuit models, a 12-year old girl, and the parents of the one of the models in Hawaii in particularly gruesome ways, he realizes Hawkins is on his trail. Rather than kill Hawkins, however, Benoit enlists Hawkins to write his biography. In the words a famous big-screen character spoke more than three decades ago, Benoit made Hawkins "an offer he could not refuse."

Maxine Paetro, who "co-wrote" The Women's Murder Club books with Patterson also collaborated on "Swimsuit." I have to assume that Paetro wrote most or all of "Swimsuit" because it seems to lack some of the sharpness and wit found in some of Patterson's earlier novels. In fact, the writing seems mechanical and unimaginative, which starkly contrasts the potentially engaging premise.

The chapters are short and the language is simple, which clearly intended to appeal to a mass audience, so the pages turn easily. However, as the story progresses and Hawkins must decide whether to simply obey Benoit and finish the story or to try to bring Benoit to justice for his own safety, the story meanders pointlessly. In fact, "Swimsuit" does not even seem to have a meaningful climax and the denouement is obviously and artificially manufactured.

Fans of James Patterson - and there are many - will definitely feel compelled to read "Swimsuit." For the rest, do yourself a favor. Put on your own swimsuit, go to the beach, and enjoy the sunshine.

I used to love his work and hurried to purchase every new title, but since he started co-authoring there has been a steady decline. I really struggled to get thru this one, the gratuitous violence and sex made me put it down and quite frankly skip over portions. I only finished because I had been stupid enough to purchase it, a mistake I won't repeat.

I have not read a James Patterson book in a few years because of the decline in his writing (is he even writing them?)I picked this up because an out of town guest left it (unfinished, i might add) and i got through 1/2 of it and threw it out. For such a talented writer its a shame. Instead of pushing out 3 or 4 titles a year he really should concentrate on a fulfilling mystery novel.. I have also stopped reading Patricia Cornwell for the same reason. There are too many excellent authors out today that deserve the type of bestsellers that he is faking. Please look at the amazon mystery blogs for some great new and old mystery authors. You will not be disappointed.

I am completely shocked at just how awful this book really turned out. The writing is lazy, boring, and predictable.

Patterson and Paetro don't even bother to describe their characters! For example, one character is described as looking like Daniel Craig...you know, the latest James Bond. Instead of making the characters three-dimensional, Patterson and Paetro give us celebrity examples of what our characters look like. How much more lazy can you get?

The story starts off interesting (I can sometimes forgive bad writing for an intriguing premise), but spirals into silliness. Some of the characters' actions are completely ridiculous and make you say, "Are you serious?" At one point, a sympathetic character pulls a fire alarm, makes another character strip at gunpoint, and ushers that character outside in front of a group of people. THEN, the authors have the audacity to skip ahead in the story. Why even describe this silly scene only to cut away from it? What's the point?

Most of the book is like the above-mentioned scenario...Then, the climax occurs and everything is neatly tied up in about ten pages. People who actually enjoy reading should stay away...This book is best suited for those readers who wish they were watching the latest James Bond movie instead of turning pages.

James Patterson once again stretches the bounds of plausibility with a plot that is supposed to stun and amaze the readers and be the best since his Kiss the Girls novel established him as the thriller writer of the 1990s. SWIMSUIT is in no way one of the worst books he's written, but the set up of the story and the characterization of the villian do make for an interesting story. But the climax squanders any momentum the novel had, and ends with a fizzle.

The prologue establishes that Ben Hawkins, a former cop and now crime journalist, is writing his book to chronicle the story of a serial killer that began with the murder of beautiful swimsuit model Kimberly McDaniels. Ben gets to know the girl's parents, Levon and Barbara, and follows along with them as they travel to Hawaii to try and find out what happened to their daughter.

As usual, Patterson and co-author are great at writing descriptive scenes of evil deeds done by the killer. The story moves a brisk pace, but there is no depth or subplot. Just the villian, Hawkins and the numerous victims. As the killer, Henri Benoit, matched wits with Hawkins, I followed along happily, hoping to see the killer be caught or for some big twist at the end. Unfortunately, the resolution is anti-climactic, and there is no twist, just a tacked on epilogue.

There are so many Patterson novels out there and if you haven't read any, you might as well start here. It's a stand alone, and it isn't horrid like some, and it isn't great like a few. It is just mediocre, like almost all of them. For this book to truly work, it needed a shock ending that made sense. It had neither.

I will preface with the fact that I am a big fan of James Patterson. I have read just about every book he has out there, but this is not even close to being the Patterson that I usually read.

At the beginning of the book is a torture and killing scene that is much more that I would expect to be in one of his books, followed by the girl's parents looking for their missing daughter. It gave me a sick feeling....the book has decapitations, rape and torture....definitely not what I am looking for in my average mystery/thriller. Too graphic and too gut wrenching for me.

Normally, I gravitate to the hero of the story-our hero here is fine, but not anyone that I really feel much about. Though there is suspense, I felt like I could barely get through parts of this book, and it was far from the "can't put it down, drag the book everywhere" kind of read I usually expect from James Patterson.

I know Patterson fans will probably flock to the book, to see for themselves, but I, for one, wished I had read the reviews before I subjected myself to it. Thank goodness it was a library book and I didn't shell out any hard earned money for this.

Take it from me, not worth your time. With so many other really good Patterson books out there, pick another-ANY other, just don't pick this one. I'm very disappointed with this one and imagine much of his fan base will be as well.