Posted by Laura on April 10th, 2010
James Patterson’s Alex Cross Series
Filed under: Books, Uncategorized
Series Overall: 
(4/5)
I recently finished reading the entire Alex Cross series by James Patterson. I had read the earlier books years ago, but never got to the latest ones because I couldn’t remember the earlier ones, and always had one last book I wanted to read before committing to reading the series, etc. Blah, blah, blah.
Anyway. The series includes:
- Along Came a Spider
- Kiss the Girls
- Jack & Jill
- Cat and Mouse
- Pop Goes the Weasel
- Roses are Red
- Violets are Blue
- Four Blind Mice
- The Big Bad Wolf
- London Bridges
- Mary, Mary
- Cross
- Double Cross
- Cross Country
- Alex Cross’s Trial (though shouldn’t that be ‘Alex Cross’ Trial’?)
- I, Alex Cross
The Good: Great lead character, supported by awesome secondary characters. Alex Cross and John Sampson are two people I’d love to actually know as friends (and to have at my back), and Patterson’s portrayal of killers such as Kyle Craig and The Weasel are sufficiently chilling as to give me shivers (and to have me double checking that the doors are locked, not that that would help).
The Bad: The stories are all similar (but riveting), which I guess you can’t get away from when writing a series in a genre. It also annoyed me that for the smart man Cross was supposed to be, he couldn’t grab control of his personal life - couldn’t find a good woman (Christine Johnson is a piece of work), kept choosing serial killers over his family, and couldn’t turn his work life off.
The Ugly: I do know that this is a personal pet peeve, but the inconsistencies are grating (mentioning people as good friends ‘The Taylors - when we’ve never heard of them, someone we never heard of rather than Sampson is his the godfather to Alex Jr., suddenly working for VICAP when he turned down the job in the last novel, wanted to bring Sampson into the FBI then nothing ever went there, plus a ton of little things I won’t bore you with). Also, it seems that once he started adding in other authors (or are they really ghost written? it’s not quite clear, but from the way there seems to be a different tone to each of the books, my bet is yes), the quality greatly diminished. Cross Country? The worst ever - totally unbelievable (a D.C. cop travels to Africa to pursue a lead? Come on!). Alex Cross’s Trial isn’t even about Alex Cross - it’s about an ancestor. In fact, all the titles with “Cross” in them should be crossed (ha, ha) off the list!
Regardless of my negatives, this series is worth a read - Alex Cross is a character you’ll want to know, and the stores are thrilling and imaginative.
