Suspense

Psychological for sure. Fast paced kept me going but I’m used to being more connected to the good people such as the PD or FBI, kept wishing for that connection. Funny that she it finished I did feel like knew them. Very twisted book. A little more King than Patterson but fast paced so I liked it. ( )

Una noche, Michael Fitzgerald descubre a una joven muerta en su bañera al volver del supermercado. Al lado del cadáver hay una pluma de gorrión. Aterrorizado, llama a la policía, que le interroga sobre la víctima, Alyssa Tepper, a la que él asegura no conocer. El detective Dobbs y la agente Gimble, del FBI, unen fuerzas en lo que parece un simple asesinato: cuando salen a la luz fotos en las que Michael aparece besando a Alyssa, es arrestado de inmediato, pero a las pocas horas aparece otra víctima con el mismo patrón: una pluma de gorrión colocada al lado del cuerpo. Cuando aparecen más, no solamente en Los Ángeles sino repartidas por todo el país, tienen claro que se enfrentan a un nuevo serial killer, al que apodan Birdman.

Einstein famously said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. By that measure, in my dealings with the work of James Patterson at least, I’m fucking nuts. Admittedly, I quote liked his first few books. ‘Along Came a Spider’ came along in 1993 at the height of the serial killer boom and I enjoyed it. I liked the next few Alex Cross novels as well. But then Patterson decided to turn himself into a brand and it all went wrong. I think that Tom Clancy was the first author to do this with the ‘Op Center’ books, the model being that the famous writer has just enough input into a book to justify their name being on the cover, but someone else provides the words. Given the number of ‘James Patterson and…” books there are, Mr P is clearly a heavy smoker. He must be to have built up enough fag packets to write plot outlines on before chucking them at whatever up and coming scribe his publishers have found him that week.
To my eternal regret I’ve read a lot of these books. The first five or so of the ‘Women’s Murder Club’ series, a number of the earlier standalones and the first of the ‘Private’ books. They were all crap. What’s worse I have a shitload more either on my Kindle or in my attic book hoard. I bought the first TEN of the ‘Private’ books in a Kindle deal. SOMEBODY STOP ME.
I think what pulls me back to them, like a moth to a flame, is the same thing that has made them so shamefully popular. They promise a quick, gripping read that will keep you flipping the pages and won’t tax the brain too much. The fact that they generally fail to deliver on all but the last of these things is something I forget every time I see one in a charity shop or a Kindle deal. The blurbs suck me in and I line myself up for another disappointment, Charlie Brown style.
So OF COURSE when I saw there was one of these damn books on NetGalley I requested it. And INEVITABLY it was dreadful. The opening is intriguing (guy finds body in his bathtub, police arrest him, turns out she was his girlfriend although he has no memory of her), but the book completely fails to explain that mystery in a credible or satisfying way. Perhaps Patterson ran out of room on his fag packet. The result is frequently ridiculous, never that interesting and completely uninvolving.
Reader, I read this one so you don’t have to, so please don’t. ( )

Einstein famously said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. By that measure, in my dealings with the work of James Patterson at least, I’m fucking nuts. Admittedly, I quote liked his first few books. ‘Along Came a Spider’ came along in 1993 at the height of the serial killer boom and I enjoyed it. I liked the next few Alex Cross novels as well. But then Patterson decided to turn himself into a brand and it all went wrong. I think that Tom Clancy was the first author to do this with the ‘Op Center’ books, the model being that the famous writer has just enough input into a book to justify their name being on the cover, but someone else provides the words. Given the number of ‘James Patterson and…” books there are, Mr P is clearly a heavy smoker. He must be to have built up enough fag packets to write plot outlines on before chucking them at whatever up and coming scribe his publishers have found him that week.
To my eternal regret I’ve read a lot of these books. The first five or so of the ‘Women’s Murder Club’ series, a number of the earlier standalones and the first of the ‘Private’ books. They were all crap. What’s worse I have a shitload more either on my Kindle or in my attic book hoard. I bought the first TEN of the ‘Private’ books in a Kindle deal. SOMEBODY STOP ME.
I think what pulls me back to them, like a moth to a flame, is the same thing that has made them so shamefully popular. They promise a quick, gripping read that will keep you flipping the pages and won’t tax the brain too much. The fact that they generally fail to deliver on all but the last of these things is something I forget every time I see one in a charity shop or a Kindle deal. The blurbs suck me in and I line myself up for another disappointment, Charlie Brown style.
So OF COURSE when I saw there was one of these damn books on NetGalley I requested it. And INEVITABLY it was dreadful. The opening is intriguing (guy finds body in his bathtub, police arrest him, turns out she was his girlfriend although he has no memory of her), but the book completely fails to explain that mystery in a credible or satisfying way. Perhaps Patterson ran out of room on his fag packet. The result is frequently ridiculous, never that interesting and completely uninvolving. It's also over 500 pages long FFS.
Reader, I read this one so you don’t have to, so please don’t.
( )