Cross Country - James Patterson

==Synopsis==

Alex is called on to help the investigation of the deaths of an entire family, when he gets there he realises one of them is Eleanor Cox his ex girlfriend. Witnesses have mentioned that the perpetrators, although masked seemed to be very young, they could even children.

Soon there is another mass killing and once again Alex, Bree and John are called in to investigate, yet again it seems that children are involved.

All too quickly Alex discovers that the person they want for these murders has left the country, but Alex can't just leave it there, he wants to bring him to justice for Eleanor's sake, and to do so he must travel to Africa and put his own life in danger.

==My Thoughts==

I enjoyed this book, but there was something very sad about it. Throughout Alex's trials in Africa we hear of the horrendous atrocities which happen on a daily basis to real life residents of those countries, and it seems inappropriate to enjoy a reading book detailing the rape and murder of young children, knowing that there is probably a young child suffering at that moment in time. But I did enjoy it, because as dark as some of the scenes were, the book is about more than a few pages.

Again, even though I said I enjoyed the book there are an awful lot of plot holes in it, and I don't like the way Patterson is trying to turn Alex into some John McClane style action hero, he has always helped the police from the sideline, getting inside the mind of the killer, and occasionally coming up against bad guys during the course of the investigation. And throughout the entire series of books he has struggled with the dilemma of catching the bad guy, or spending time with his family. Yet here we're supposed to believe that he can set that quandary aside with a flick of a switch and rush off to one of the most violent and dangerous places on earth. And we're supposed to believe that his current girlfriend has absolutely no problem whatsoever with him rushing off half way around to world because of his feelings for a dead lover!

I've mentioned before in a James Patterson book review that I like the short chapters, because you're not waiting for ages to get to the next chapter if you find yourself dropping off whilst reading (as is the case with the book I'm reading at the moment, and it's very annoying), but I think he's taken it to the extreme in some cases with this book. A couple of chapters were only 2 pages long, and once you take away the large header and footer, the actual text only takes up one page. The book was paced quite nicely though, but there was one part of the storyline that I would have removed, but I can't say much as I don't want to spoil it, except to say I thought Alex had far more integrity.

I do think James Patterson should think hard before producing another Alex Cross book though, because he seems to be running out of ideas and taking Alex in a direction that is completely inappropriate considering everything we know about Alex.