Fear No Evil by James Patterson (2021) After weeks of plowing through books and movies that turned out as crushing disappointments, what a simple pleasure to chow down on the book equivalent of a Big Mac.....(or Whopper with cheese, depending on your favorite fast food place....)
By that we could only mean a dependable junk food read from the Master Of Junk Food Reads.....James Patterson.
Usually with the help of co-authors (who've included everyone from Bill Clinton to Dolly Parton), Patterson pumps out assembly line best sellers with the speed of a McDonald's drive-thru crew. You know you should be reading something better, but hmmm-hmmmm, Patterson's lightning-paced, junky thrillers zip through your eyeballs faster than a 2000 calorie burger with 3000 calorie fries on the side.
As the commercials say....we're lovin' it.
Do we feel guilty for wasting our precious reading time? Hell no. Not after glumly trudging through Dean Koontz's "Quicksilver" and the "Nightmare Alley" remake.
Patterson flies solo when it comes to the adventures of his world famous Dr. Alex Cross, the African American police detective and serial killer profiler extraordinaire. And over the years, Cross has accumulated enough diabolical and powerful enemies to rival James Bond.
The new Cross thriller puts our hero smack in the middle of a gruesome, ultra violent war between a Mexican cartel family and a shadowy organization of vigilantes determined to wipe them out. The body count here becomes astronomical - the collateral damage extends to the slaughter of innocent families of murdered FBI and DEA agents who sold out to the cartel.
While Cross and his long time partner John Sampson cope simultaneously with the murderous cartel and 'Maestro', the mysterious vigilante mastermind, both sets of villains decide to put the two cops in their sights as well,
All of this leads to a thrilling scenic showdown in the wilds of Montana.......with a few twists and turns along the way......and some of the mayhem even spills over into Paris, where Cross's private investigator wife Bree is surveilling a wealthy big-business sex predator
Just like you know what your Whopper's going to taste like, you'll find all the standard Patterson ingredients here....the 2 & 1/2 page chapters, the heartfelt scenes depicting Cross's fierce protective love for his family members........and a truly horrific pile up of corpses.
Junky to the max.....but finger-lickin' good. When other authors fail to deliver on their promises (fueled by their over-hyped reviews), we can always depend on the Patterson fast food book factory to show us a good time. 4 stars (****).
No comments:
Post a Comment