Target: Alex Cross by James PattersonMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Although I rarely read Patterson's books anymore, I am still faithful to the Alex Cross series. And it looks like he did not use a co-author for this book, the 24th in the Cross series. Alex is working with the FBI and also maintaining his psychology office at his home. His wife Bree is chief of detectives for Metro Police.
Several top American leaders are being murdered. At first, it doesn't seem like they are related, but Cross discovers that they are. There are six assassins targeting the top 6 politicians in the U. S. But then the assassins start ending up dead. Who is bankrolling this operation?
I don't want to give any secrets away, so I will say no more about the plot; however, I have to mention things that got on my nerves. First, one of the killers keeps humming "Carry on my wayward son." Yet Patterson writes it as "Carry on Wayward Song," so he obviously is not very familiar with the song, and it just bothered me.
It also bothered me when he mentioned assault rifles. Here is why that bothers me. In the words of another author...
There is a lot of quibbling over the title "assault weapon" because it was a term invented by the gun control advocates to make for a scary sound bite. It has no technical definition (in a field where everything has a technical definition). The gun-rights side invented the term "modern sporting rifle," which while being an overly broad, made-up term, it does have the advantage of being accurate in that are used for several types of target shooting and hunting. ('Assault' weapons vs. sporting weapons: What's the difference? Article written for Police1 website.)
I thought the plot was completely over-the-top. It was not just complex but convoluted and confusing. It really got crazy when it involved a game company and a type of expo like comic-con where people dress up as video game characters.
The one client Cross saw in his role of psychologist did not fit with the rest of the story and was not actually resolved. The reader still doesn't know WHY certain events occurred. And last, there was no ending. I believe Patterson did this purposely to sell his next book.
So... I still love Alex Cross, but this was not one of the better books in the series.
View all my reviews
There is a lot of quibbling over the title "assault weapon" because it was a term invented by the gun control advocates to make for a scary sound bite. It has no technical definition (in a field where everything has a technical definition). The gun-rights side invented the term "modern sporting rifle," which while being an overly broad, made-up term, it does have the advantage of being accurate in that are used for several types of target shooting and hunting. ('Assault' weapons vs. sporting weapons: What's the difference? Article written for Police1 website.)
I thought the plot was completely over-the-top. It was not just complex but convoluted and confusing. It really got crazy when it involved a game company and a type of expo like comic-con where people dress up as video game characters.
The one client Cross saw in his role of psychologist did not fit with the rest of the story and was not actually resolved. The reader still doesn't know WHY certain events occurred. And last, there was no ending. I believe Patterson did this purposely to sell his next book.
So... I still love Alex Cross, but this was not one of the better books in the series.
View all my reviews
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