Cross Country (2008)
James Patterson
Arrow Books, 406pp
Off ill for a month with a nasty, virulent virus (aka The Flu), I found my concentration lacking, but still desirous to read, I picked up the latest volume from “The World’s Bestselling Thriller Writer” (as the cover deems him), James Patterson. This is the thirteenth Alex Cross novel – the character created by Patterson in Along Came A Spider, back when Patterson wasn’t the commercial factory he is today – and sees Cross trailing an African killer, The Tiger, who swarms with a legion of killer children. Patterson, then, is commenting upon the civil wars of Africa, using their horrors to create entertainment.
Like many of the bestselling thriller writers – Dan Brown et al – Patterson is a poor writer. His prose is striped to the bare essentials, with chapters of no more than two pages (though some appear longer because of the print size, the white space and huge chapter headings. I’ve not read much of Patterson’s work outside of the Alex Cross range (of which, I’m almost ashamed to admit, I have read them all), but it does strike me that this is his most successful brand (and it is a brand now). Cross, a detective and psychologist for the Washington DC police force, has faced his fair share of brutal killers – the common criticism of these kinds of books comes into play here: just how many psychopaths can there be to stalk just one man?
Cross Country, like all those previous books, roars along. There is barely time to catch your breath. It jumps continents and countries with almost no regard for the laws of physics, and the characterisation is, as ever, sketchy at best. The writing is almost unilaterally bad. Yet for the three hours I submit to this character, once a year, it’s entertaining in a bad movie manner, it’s entertaining in a way other novels are not. Never would I reconsider rereading one, or would I ever class them as good – even for their genre (there are much much better crime writers) – but I like Alex Cross – a good father and good son in a genre where many of its ‘heroes’ are flawed, alcoholic and damaged – and I think Nana Mama a hoot.
So not great literature, but for a few hours downtime, good fun.
Blogging The Classics 