Beth's Books

Originally on my book blog!

Can I just flail instead of write a review? This was a masterpiece and you should believe me because I don’t use that word often. Everything was fabulous in this book. The characters (that’s nothing new), the plot (also nothing new), the plot twists (go figure), and the ending (SHOCKER, THAT).

No really, this book was like fictional quicksand (as opposed to real quicksand that actually takes a really long time to swallow you up.) This book took a full two minutes, if that, to make me want to read the rest of it in one sitting. I read the back of the book before I started reading it and I saw that they put Shafer’s name on the back and I was like “um??? I know who the killer is so???” but it’s so much more than that. I wanted to keep reading to find out WHY he killed them, WHY he was such a creepo, and WHY he picked him victims.

Alex and Christine are ~in love~ and they are perfect together. They have a very grown up relationship and they took their relationship slow. I love them together. I love Christine’s relationship with Jannie and Damon because that’s a healthy relationship. Parents: if you are going to have step kids due to a marriage with previous kids from it, read about this relationship. They are doing it right. There are some books that if they aren’t filled with suspense, they may get boring or tedious, but this series is not like that. When the suspense is not happening, I still greatly enjoy the books because of how well the relationships are written.

This series has shed a lot on how marginalized groups feel about cops and the justice system as a whole. Patterson doesn’t go out and say “the cops don’t care about marginalized groups” because he doesn’t have to.

“The police won’t do nothin’. You never come back here again after today. Never happen. You don’t care about us. We’re nothin’ to nobody.”

I know not everyone spends their days reading articles of things like this, but I try to keep up on important things and I see things like this frequently. It may be uncomfortable for other people to read, but I think it’s important for Patterson to put these things in the books, especially when Alex Cross lives in a place where it happens daily.

BUT THE PLOT TWISTS. Okay, if you’re not really into the personal lives of Alex Cross and his family, or the ties to Real Life Issues, you can skim those and still enjoy the book because the plot twists are incredible. I don’t remember the last time I read a book where the plot twists surprised me this much. If you’re a fan of plot twists, you’d be a fan of this book.

The ending was as perfect as a book with several murders and sadness could be. I wasn’t sure how they would end a book like this, but the ending was better than I thought it would be. Probably the best ending of the series so far. As soon as I set the book down, all I wanted to do was go grab the next one and start reading it but I can’t because it’s a 3 hour drive from here.

I totally recommend this book to anyone that doesn’t mind murder and some gruesome scenes.

Have you read any books in this series? If so, did you like them?