Kill Alex Cross – by James Patterson, $28.99 HC/$9.99 E
I am a capitalist. That means I believe the market never lies. If poetry doesn’t sell anymore it’s not because people are uneducated heathens (all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding) but because the public’s tastes have changed. If something sells well, that means it has merit. Someone like John Locke might scam the system for a year, but not for an extended period of time. Someone like James Patterson on the other hand, whose books have topped the NYT charts with 63 titles, cannot be scamming the system. The market never lies. Mr. Patterson’s success is real, sustained, and therefore has merit.
So why did I quit reading his books?
My library contains more than a dozen Patterson books mostly from the Alex Cross series but with a few stand-alones like SAIL and TOYS. As I looked over my Patterson collection, my finger ran across the spines of the books that I knew at a glance had driven me away from the franchise. They all had something in common. On each cover was the word “with”. James Patterson “with” Co-author-of-the-day. Alex Cross’ Trial. 9th Judgement. Others.
The market never lies. Which could only mean that I was out of step with the market. I needed to take a new look at Patteron’s work. The co-authored books were definitely out of the question, so I bought KILL ALEX CROSS. It was written by James Patterson and had no other names on the cover. It was the purest and most recent form of Patterson I could get my hands on.
What did I find? White space. 117 chapters in 363 pages with the chapter headings taking up more than half a page. Same for the chapter endings. Compare that to Lee Child’s WANTED MAN at 80 chapters in 405 pages with chapter headings that take up only four lines. Just guessing, but KILL ALEX CROSS is the shortest book I’ve bought in years. It’s a “page turner” because there isn’t much on the page.
What else did I find? Patterson is a great writer. No doubt about it. Structurally, his work flows like a river of melted butter. In most books I read there is at least one sentence I must reread to understand the paragraph. (OK, ok, enough jokes about my pitiful education. Let’s move on, shall we?) Not with Patterson. In one interview that appeared on his website a few years ago, he bragged about how quickly people read his work. Partly because he is offering a lower word count per dollar than anyone on the market, but mainly because his writing is flawless.
His work is more a sketch than a work of art. Not Mondrian versus Renoir, I’m talking about a far simpler sketch. More like a beach artist sketching your likeness for a pittance. But for the money, he doesn’t return an ordinary sketch. It’s brilliant. Here is his description of a villain:
Dr. Hala al Dossari was twenty-nine years old, slender attractive, humorous when it was useful, very bright, with a photographic memory.
That’s it. No height, no tattoos, no hairstyle, no distinguishing marks, yet you can see her. Your imagination fills in the blanks with an Arab of some kind. An educated Arab. You don’t need more because her actions in her first and second scene help you define her. Brilliant.
The first three chapters take place in a school that is sketched thus:
The Branaff School had once been the Branaff Estate, until ownership had transferred to a Quaker educational trust. It was said among the kids that the grounds were haunted, not by good people who had died here, but by the disgruntled Branaff descendants who’d been evicted to make room for the private school.
Brick? Stone? Clapboard? Gothic? Victorian? Who cares. You know the place. Each of us has a different school in mind, but each of us is certain what it looks like. His sketch drives our imagination to fill in the blanks.
Patterson’s writing is active. The descriptions, or more accurately, suggestions, are unimportant. And it works for him. The recent lean toward the literary thriller in the marketplace hasn’t affected Patterson in the least. He concentrates on actions almost exclusively. And to accomplish this, he swings from first person to third and back again. He also swings from past tense to present tense and back again, with an agility that makes it seem natural.
When he didn’t answer— not a word or a nod or a grunt— I tried again.
“You hearing me?” I shouted. “Tell me where the two kids are! If you want us to help you out of there.”
The ambulance was here now and two EMTs were at my shoulder, trying to push me out of the way. I wasn’t moving anywhere.
Notice that everything inside the quote marks is present tense. Not uncommon. But also note: The ambulance was here now. Not: then the ambulance arrived. Not: the ambulance arrived. No, it arrived: NOW. Clever? Intentional? Intuitive? Brilliant.
But I still had to ask myself, so why did I quit reading Patterson?
The answer was in the story itself. It was fast paced and thrilling. To read it was a simple pleasure. But to finish it left me with an unsatisfied taste. Not that the story was unresolved, but that the title was unfulfilled. A book called KILL ALEX CROSS should, in my humble opinion, include some form of threat to the life of Alex Cross. Maybe I read it so fast that I missed it, but I don’t recall anything remotely resembling a threat to the life of the main character. WTF?
To me, that is a huge short coming. Along with several other story elements that were so lightly or blithely described that I had no feeling for them. I didn’t really care about the abducted kids. I was surprised at the killing of a Secretary, but I never really knew him or his assistant, so… what? Unlike reading a good Jeffery Deaver novel, I was never really worried about anyone. Unlike reading a Lee Child novel, I was never rooting for the good guys. Unlike a Zoë Sharp novel, I never really cared about the title character. It read too fast, too easy.
There was one commendable sub-plot though. Alex Cross’ family deals with an abandoned sixth grader. That was a character worth caring about, and the side effect was to have me admire Alex Cross’ Nana Mama (still don’t care about Alex much). If Patterson writes a Nana Mama book, I’ll buy it right off.
Bottom line: I stopped reading Patterson novels because they are too light, too easy, too thin. If you’ve read four of them, you’re pretty much done with the concept and method. Personally, I want something thicker, heavier, deeper for thirty bucks. But there is no doubt in my mind, Mr. Patterson is a literary genius.
Peace, Seeley
Special NOTE: MY REVIEWS ARE MY REACTIONS TO THE BOOKS I READ. I have no relationship, financial or familial, with the authors. I do not expect, but would not refuse, any reciprocal reviews or recommendations. Just sayin.
