Reviewer Harold Walters is not famous yet though he has been
writing for half a life time. Over the years his short stories have
appeared in a number of local magazines. Presently, and for more than a
decade, he has written a column for Downhome magazine. He
writes a humour column (My Imperfect Slant) for a local
weekly, The Charter.He
writes a bi-weekly book column (Book ReMarks) that is
carried by several local papers. He has also done book
reviews for a number of magazines and newspapers. Harold is almost a
dinosaur, but he is not famous yet.
Author: James Patterson
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
ISBN: 978-0-316-01878-4
There’s something rotten in Washington, D.C. and the stench might be emanating from number 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Indications are that a serial killer might be involved with Cabinet or “attached to the White House.”
Author: James Patterson
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
ISBN: 978-0-316-01878-4
Click Here To Purchase I, Alex Cross
There’s something rotten in Washington, D.C. and the stench might be emanating from number 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Indications are that a serial killer might be involved with Cabinet or “attached to the White House.”
In I, Alex Cross, James Patterson’s latest installment of his Alex Cross series, Detective Cross, who confesses he is “addicted to the chase,” is drawn into this present horror—the possibility that someone in government is committing serial slaughter—when he learns that his niece, Caroline Cross, who is discovered to be an escort known as Nichole, has been murdered, that her “remains” have been found in the trunk of a scumbag’s car.
Alex cringes at the word “remains”, a word suggesting something less than a body. He is upset even further when it is revealed that his niece’s body and the bodies of other victims have been fed through a wood chipper.
As well as Alex Cross, even readers who ordinarily are not particularly squeamish are bound to flinch at the thought of a wood chipper being used to obliterate victims’ identities. Readers are likely to see the operator of the wood chipper as a villain more hideous than a chainsaw-wielding brute in a chop-and-slash movie.
Yet a worse monster than the chipper’s operator is the ultimate psycho who provides the fodder for the obscene machine. This man is a member of the group of “high-resource people” who are the clientele of a private sex club, the “expensive and exclusive” Blacksmith Farms, located in Culpepper County. He is Zeus, a “creepy, powerful, rich bastard.”
Complicating matters for Cross in his efforts to track down and eliminate Zeus is his grandmother’s illness. Nana Mama, the feisty backbone of his family, has been hospitalized and has fallen into a coma from which—considering the frailty of her heart—she might not emerge.
Alex’s investigation is hindered also by a circle of henchmen—mobsters? the CIA?—protecting Zeus’ true identity. People—loose ends—who have some clue as to Zeus lofty position are being hunted down, killed and chippered. They are not safe even as far distant as Trinidad, never mind the environs of Washington, D.C.
The finale occurs at a party at the Kennedy Center. The president and her husband—the First Gentleman—as well as assorted upper-crust people are in attendance, all of them guarded by assorted law enforcement agencies—the Metropolitan Police, the CIA, the FBI. And in inconspicuous attendance among them is Zeus.
Finally, when events become explosive, Alex Cross rushes fearlessly into the fracas, his Glock locked and loaded.