Kiss the Girls (Alex Cross) (Mass Market Paperback)

~ (Author) "FOR THREE weeks, the young killer actually lived inside the walls of an extraordinary fifteen-room beach house..." (more)
Key Phrases: disappearing house, underground house, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Will Rudolph (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

"Casanova" works the East Coast, "The Gentleman Caller" works the West Coast, and these two serial killers might just be working together. Washed-up Washington, D.C., police detective Alex Cross gets involved when his niece is abducted. Since this is a new work by the author of the best-selling Along Came a Spider (LJ 12/92), don't be surprised that Paramount has bought the film rights and that BOMC has made it a main selection.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Kirkus Reviews

Advertising executive Patterson doubles neither our pleasure nor our fun by giving us two intense, Hannibal Lecter-type murderers for the price of one in an improbable and hopelessly derivative mess of a thriller. Feds and local authorities on both coasts are baffled by a pair of serial killers targeting beautiful young women: The Gentleman Caller works the scene in sunny L.A., where he brutally murders and dismembers his prey; his counterpart back East, who calls himself Casanova, trolls the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill area for sexy coeds to victimize. Their MOs provide plenty of fodder for an author trying to cook up a work of psychological terror: Both are powerful, handsome, brilliant (natch), commit perfect crimes, and, despite their busy schedules, manage to keep in touch with each other. To catch them, you obviously need a perfect crime fighter. Enter Alex Cross, the Washington, D.C., detective/psychologist hero of bestselling Along Came A Spider (1993), who gets dragged into all this after his niece Naomi, a student at Duke University, vanishes. Working with the authorities and a medical student named Kate McTiernan, who was lucky enough to escape Casanova's clutches, Cross begins to understand how the two dueling psychos operate. Just in the nick of time, too, because the Gentleman Caller, on the run from the law out West, decides that nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina with his old buddy Casanova. So, what does Cross, whose favorite niece is now in the clutches of two sickos, do? Fall in love with Kate McTiernan, of course, in an ill-placed romantic subplot intended to raise the stakes in the deadly cat-and-mouse game. Does Cross save Naomi? Are the two killers brought to justice or, at the very least, consigned to gory demises? Who cares? As a storyteller, Patterson is a great ad copywriter. (First priting of 275,000; film rights to Paramount; Book-of-the-Month Club main selection) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 496 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (December 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446601241
• ISBN-13: 978-0446601245
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (364 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #54,377 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

• This is item 2 in The Alex Cross Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Diabolical Characters, Ingenious Plot, September 12, 2002

By	W. Carol "dog lover" - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

I never saw the movie. Never read a book by Patterson. Never really wanted to. So when I idly picked up "Kiss the Girls" while browsing a local bookstore, I didn't expect much; it was on a table of "fun beach reads" or some such thing.

I read the first page or two. I bought the book. And I can't remember much after that, except that, heart pounding, palms sweating, I entered the obscenely diabolical world of two serial killers: The Gentleman Caller, and Casanova, terrorizing both Coasts at once. With skill and his own brand of genius, Patterson takes the reader into the crazed yet terrifyingly logical minds of each killer. We are there while they stalk their victims: young women who are smart, educated, self-assured, and perfectly beautiful. At least in the eyes of their killers. We are there during some of the most gruesome and terrifying murders. We are there as Casanova sexually tortures his live victims in his House of Horrors, in which one infraction of the "house rules" results in horrible death.

What is the connection between these two killers? What is their sick purpose? It falls to police detective/psychologist Alex Cross to solve the mystery. But Alex has more than a professional interest in the case. His beloved niece Naomi is one of the missing women.

I challenge anyone to put this book down once begun. I was absolutely amazed at the hold it had on me--and still does. I immediately ordered the next in Patterson's Alex Cross series, "Jack and Jill." And I have recommended "Kiss the Girls" to every book-loving friend I have.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is the one!, May 4, 2000

By	Brian Reaves (Anniston, AL USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Of all of Patterson's "Cross" novels, this still remains my favorite. The premise was (at the time of writing) original and amazing. You could practically feel yourself there among the women trapped in Casanova's collection at times, and it was all in all a great book. The movie tried to be faithful to it, but 60-year-old Morgan Freeman as a thirtysomething Alex Cross just didn't cut it. Don't base your opinion of the book on that movie...trust me. This book is one you'll finish quickly and enjoy tremendously.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Sadly Disappointing..., April 12, 2002

By	Ann Holway (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

This book becomes more and more displeasing the more I think about it - an unfortunate outcome for any story. Not to sound like a Spice "Girl", but "Kiss" is truly degrading to women.

A lonely-hearts sociopath who calls himself Casanova is kidnapping gorgeous, intelligent young femmes from the Research Triangle in Durham, North Carolina, and forming a private harem. His "guests" are killed and abandoned in the woods if they break his rules.

I'm not a psychologist, but even I know that serial killers tend to select and then prey on one type of victim. Why would a villain who's been grabbing relatively helpless coeds in their late teens suddenly go after a kick-boxing doctor in her early 30s?

Why, to introduce Dr. Kate McTiernan, his latest conquest, of course. She's beautiful enough to turn men's heads, but charmingly klutzy enough to bang into stair railings. She's brilliant enough to excel as a young surgeon, but hip enough to wear a Mickey Mouse watch. And after being zapped with a stun gun and pumped full of enough dope to space out a Grateful Dead concert, she's coherent enough to methodically run through a list of drugs that Casanova could have given her based on the side effects she's suffering. Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's SuperDoc!

Like kidnapping her isn't bad enough, Casanova also insults Kate by trying to con her into thinking that if she behaves, he'll let her go. Please. If she were stupid enough to believe that, he never would have picked her in the first place. His "high standards" would not have allowed it.

"Kiss the Girls" also includes a brutal rape scene that turned my stomach. Sometimes I can cope with the depiction of rape in stories because I like to see the criminals get their punishment in the end, but this was OTT.

Upon her daring escape, the book has Kate - a recovering civilian - jump straight from the hospital into a sting operation to catch the creep with Cross. Has she forgotten the horrific rape and beatings she's endured? Are we supposed to? And are we likewise supposed to cheer on Alex Cross, a psychologist and police officer who is "sensitive" enough to cry over the death of a child and kiss his male friend but fails to even mention the possibility that Kate might benefit from counseling?

Oops. Silly me - I forgot that Kate has superhuman strength....

The ONLY realistic aspect of this story is the hard fact that even if Cross and his cronies manage to snare Casanova, they need to tread lightly. If he's killed or incapacitated before they discover his secret lair, his victims - including Cross's niece - will starve to death. Sadly, this is the only drop of dew in a lonely, barren wasteland.

I also have a bone to pick with the prose in "Kiss" - namely the way its characters think and make profound discoveries all in italics. Like Agatha Christie. Patterson might be a best-selling author, but he is no Agatha Christie.

If the storyline itself interests you, please do yourself a favor and watch the atmospheric, stylish film, starring Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman, instead.