Bridgman reviewed Cross kill by James Patterson (Alex Cross)
Review of 'Cross kill' on 'Goodreads'
1 star
This is one of those little $5 books that are part of [a:James Patterson|3780|James Patterson|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1468347205p2/3780.jpg]’s Bookshots series. They’re designed to be read in just a few hours and are supposed to be “Impossible to stop reading.”
[b:Cross Kill|28925608|Cross Kill (Alex Cross, #24.4)|James Patterson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1458611962l/28925608.SX50.jpg|49141475] is the first Patterson book of any kind I’ve read. It will also be the last.
The writing is awful. Early on, there’s a shooting and when one character asks the other what he can see, the response is, “There’s blood all over Theresa’s white apron.” Who, in a million years, would say that, “white apron”? You'd write it, sure, but no one would say it when there's someone with a gun trying to shoot you in the next room.
The chapters are just a few pages long and are broken up at random.
Patterson, a Roman Catholic, injects his beliefs into the story whenever …
This is one of those little $5 books that are part of [a:James Patterson|3780|James Patterson|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1468347205p2/3780.jpg]’s Bookshots series. They’re designed to be read in just a few hours and are supposed to be “Impossible to stop reading.”
[b:Cross Kill|28925608|Cross Kill (Alex Cross, #24.4)|James Patterson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1458611962l/28925608.SX50.jpg|49141475] is the first Patterson book of any kind I’ve read. It will also be the last.
The writing is awful. Early on, there’s a shooting and when one character asks the other what he can see, the response is, “There’s blood all over Theresa’s white apron.” Who, in a million years, would say that, “white apron”? You'd write it, sure, but no one would say it when there's someone with a gun trying to shoot you in the next room.
The chapters are just a few pages long and are broken up at random.
Patterson, a Roman Catholic, injects his beliefs into the story whenever he can in ways that do nothing to advance the plot or develop his characters, so you have sentences like, “I joined her and we held hands and begged our savior for mercy,” even when the character saying this is in no danger. You also have the standard dumb guy’s response to things he can’t comprehend—“If that’s not a miracle, I don’t know what is”—twice in this very short book.
The book is called a novel, but it doesn’t end. It’s more like part one of a novel and it ends with a cliff hanger. I’ll let myself fall off this cliff.
True, no one’s saying that these books are supposed to be great literature, but the crowd that says reading anything is better than reading nothing is a crowd of idiots. Reading is supposed to improve you, not just give your eyeballs something to do. There are plenty of writers who write face-paced genre fiction that’s as well-written as it is entertaining. Elmore Leonard, anyone?