Cross Country

James Patterson is to action adventure readers exactly what Barbara Cartland was to fans of romance novels – not only prolific and predictable, but formulaic and utterly reliable.



Patterson churns them out at a furious rate, maintaining his popularity by guaranteeing his audience an exciting mentally-lite page-turner: Cross Country, his latest featuring series hero Alex Cross, is no exception.



Ideally mindless holiday reading, the book features Africa, massacres, slavery, corruption, politics, violence, and all the usual suspects: send your brain on vacation and you might even enjoy it.

How does James Patterson continually get paid to crank out this drivel? James Patterson has taken to lately writing novels with other, lesser known authors, and those novels (in my opinion) are pretty heavily written by the other author. The James Patterson I know and love just does not come through and it is the same with this novel. It reads like a novel ghost written by someone else with an axe to grind, a political agenda and no concept nor care for the Alex Cross character or family of characters.

This novel is not only poorly written, by page 25 I'm drowning in exclamation points that do not abate for the entire length of the novel, it is poorly chopped into sometimes half-page long "chapters" that are just a joke. This book show more seriously reads like a bad entry for a high-school fiction contest.

The only reason why I'm so scathing here is because of the bitter, bitter disappointment I felt after plunking down my $10 only to be stuck on a 6 hour airplane ride with no other reading material. Had I not already finished the Sky Mall catalog, I would have gladly thrown this book in the trash and read that instead.

I will think long and hard before I buy another James Patterson Alex Cross novel, that's for sure, and from now on, I will spend a bit of time in the bookstore reading well into the beginning ofany other James Patterson offerings before I shell out my money. show less

Actual rating: 4.25 (Actual review starts at paragraph 2)
I feel that I should start by saying that I greatly enjoy murder/mystery/thriller books. I enjoy trying to piece together "who done it" and where the killer might be hiding out. I enjoy the rush of adrenaline that sometimes comes from waiting to see if the detectives will catch the killer before he can kill again. Even though I bring all these things up that I enjoy, I will say that some murder/mystery books, even though very enjoyable, do not earn very many stars after I have read them. They can be very predictable and even though enjoyable, may not quite hit the note I was looking for. This is frequently the case with the Alex Cross books. I would consider them bubblegum for the show more mind. Even though it is fun to chew, you don't get much sustenance from it and after a while, it can become a little much to chew. These books do just that for me. I enjoy reading them after I have finished reading a very large or dense book because I can easily and quickly fly through them without having to focus or worry about things like symbolism, character motivation, or analysis. I just finished reading the second Song of Ice and Fire book (A Clash of Kings) by George R.R. Martin and even though it was very good, it was very dense; I felt the need for a break after reading it. Cross Country by James Patterson was definitely the break I needed and for some reason, reading Alex Cross this time felt much more enjoyable and therefore received a higher rating than I have given an Alex Cross book in the past.

In typical Alex Cross fashion, there is a murder to solve and a killer to find. I was very entertained by the plot of this story and I was kept guessing as to how all the clues tied together. Something about this Alex Cross book had me more engaged than the last few I have read.

I have mixed feelings about the fact that Alex left the United States to go after the international killer (there were international killers in other books and Alex didn't pick up and leave the country for literally the entire book). I understand that the person who died at the beginning was a friend of his, but for some reason it didn't sit well with me from the get-go that Patterson chose to write as though Alex were in Nigeria for the entire book.

With that said, I thought Patterson did a marvelous job of exposing the reader to the gruesome horrors that happen on the other side of the planet. I not sure how much of the book is based on true stories and news events, but I felt more than a little shocked at the horrors that some other parts of the world can hold. This book's injuries and murders felt so much more graphic and personal compared to the other books and I haven't been able to quite figure out why. Alex goes through some very horrific scenes himself in which he is tortured and injured which might be why it felt more personal - usually the injuries, tortures, and murders are happening to other characters - not Alex Cross. Other characters close to Alex experience these same horrors which also made it feel so much more personal compared to past books. These scenes definitely kept me on the edge of my seat, made me not want to put the book down, and therefore earned this book a little higher of a rating compared to the other Alex Cross books that I have read so far.

I'm jumping right into the next Alex Cross book before this Alex Cross high wears off and before the school year starts up. I've heard the next is quite a bit different compared to the other Alex Cross books, but I'm looking forward to another James Patterson quick read. show less

I REALLY liked this. More than any Patterson/Cross book in a long time. The ending felt a little rushed (SK disease) but I was more than a little creeped out. It has more of the psychological aspects that have been missing in recet books and I felt pulled to the gm to finish reading. I'm very glad I read it once there were new books out so that I knew the path he was taking it wouldn't be true. Somehow I don't think we've seen the last of Tiger - there seemed to be more woven into this. Substitiute Libya for Nigeria and the book was also remarkably current. My one complaint? Some of the characters were a little too thin on the ground. I want to know more - and maybe we'll learn more?

It's funny with these books, you have a pretty well written story and it's going good, then suddenly a chapter gets throw in at the end and you're left wondering...how could Alex Cross figure something out that two top level CIA guys missed but it conveniently wraps up the story with a nice little bow...come on, give the readers a bit more credit...

While I enjoyed parts of the story (mainly the background of the struggles in Africa, which most Americans don't know enough about), I found too many plot holes and implausibilities in the story to really enjoy it. I'm not sure if there were more than in the usual James Patterson story or I've just read enough of his books that I have become jaded, but I just couldn't put aside my disbelief at the outlandish plot twists in this one.

I've never read a James Patterson book before, but Cross Country can stand on its own. You don't need to be familiar with previous entries in the Alex Cross series to dive into this one. Aside from an irritating overuse of exclamation points, I enjoyed Patterson's novel despite my aversion to what I consider mass market authors. Alex Cross, Washington DC detective, is on the trail of the Tiger, a Nigerian killer for hire. The trail leads him to Africa and horrors Americans can only imagine. The plot and characters are well developed. I especially appreciated his politically-conscious injection of some of the awful things that are happening on the African continent right now. Cross is a likable character who has become accustomed to show more seeing violence and murder. Africa has a major impact on him and cracks the wall required of any detective. He witnesses police brutality, the horrors of genocide, and the lawlessness that has taken over some areas as his search takes him from Nigeria, to Sierra Leone, to Darfur, and back to Nigeria. Patterson clearly depicts the vastly different world Cross encounters while he hunts the Tiger and the emotional and physical toll it takes on him. If you are in the mood for a mystery with social relevance, pick up James Patterson's Cross Country. show less