My first visit to the James Patterson thriller mill is likely to be my last. This novel about a gruff female cop in Australia who has to catch a serial killer and save her unjustly imprisoned brother contains no positive surprises for anyone who has ever read a good thriller.
The book is as close to TV as a written story can get, with fast-paced action, minimal internal dialogue, and distractingly short chapters that cater to stunted attention spans (with many scenes cut in half in order to stay under three pages). The writing is capable enough, but it doesn’t aim for the stars. Disbelief has to be suspended again and again. Maybe the next book will be better. Patterson’s many writers have probably churned out three more titles in the time it took to write these two paragraphs.