Friday, December 21, 2012

Merry Christmas Alex Cross – James Patterson (Little Brown)


The most dangerous thing in Merry Christmas Alex Cross, the latest installment in the long running series of popular whodunit’s from mega-best- selling author James Patterson, is not a psycho killer, pistol packing punk or even an Islamic terrorist hell bent on destruction. Nope, it turns out the most dangerous item in the story is the hero’s telephone!

It’s a showy Christmas Eve in Washington, DC when what has to be the most dreaded sound in the Cross family home front, the ringing of the phone calls the master detective/psychologist off on another adventure to face down evil.

While bestselling authors have often been unable to resist the urge to use the Christmas holiday as the backdrop of their story, this one may leave long time Patterson fans more than a little cold. While not truly a collection of short stories or novellas strung together around the Cross family holiday, the book is made up of at least three storylines that don’t quite hang together. Disjointed is the best word I can come up with to describe the effort.

At times it feels like the ridiculously prolific Patterson had a few storylines hanging around the “it’s a good story, but I can’t quite make a book out of it file” that he decide to pull together with a little Christmas glue. After the phone rings for the third time, you start to wonder if the DC police can’t do anything without Alex Cross.  

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