Cross Country, by James Patterson

 For a number of years now Mr. Patterson has been writing most of his novels with a co-author and there’s always been a question in my mind as to how much of the writing is actually his.  He seems to publish a new novel every three or four months so I suspect most of the weight is being carried by the co-authors. However, he has always reserved the Alex Cross series for himself and, supposedly, he has written this latest installment on his own.  Having read it, though, I’m not sure it’s something he would want to trumpet from the rooftops.  We’re in Washington, DC, and there have been several brutal murders of entire families.  The murders have been committed by a gang from Africa, lead by a mysterious leader known only as The Tiger.  When Alex Cross’s college sweetheart becomes the next victim, Alex decides to become personally involved in the investigation—going so far as to travel to Africa in pursuit of The Tiger.  The basic elements of an exciting thriller are in place but Patterson has become either such a busy author or such a lazy one that the book never takes off.  There’s just endless violence and Alex acting very stupidly most of the time—even managing to get his nose broken not once but twice.   The plot climax is both muddled and boring.  The only interesting character—a female African reporter—is murdered and it’s really downhill from there.  If you want to read a Patterson, try Richard North Patterson, instead. The library has a number of his novels in the B&T collection, all excellent.

Eclipse, by Richard North Patterson

 Speaking of the other Patterson, Mr. Richard North Patterson also has a new novel and, coincidentally, most of it is also set in Africa.  Damon Pierce is a successful California lawyer who is rather at a crossroads with his life.  He is recently divorced, after years in a mostly soulless marriage.  Work—at least the lawyering he has been doing--no longer satisfies as it once did.  Damon is contemplating changes in his life when he gets an email from Marissa Okari, someone he loved years ago when they met in a creative writing class.  Marissa is now married to Bobby, an activist in the fictional African country of Luandia.  Luandia is run by the very ruthless and corrupt dictator, General Savior Karama, who has grown rich and powerful from oil revenues and kickbacks from PetroGlobal, an American company with an oil monopoly in the country.  Bobby is fighting against the corrupt and polluting practices of Karama and PetroGlobal and trying to win more freedom and better conditions for the common people.  Marissa has gotten back in touch with Damon because Bobby has been arrested and charged with the murder of three PetroGlobal workers—and he’s about to be tried with a sentence of death by a kangaroo court that has been appointed by Karama.  Can Damon come to Luandia and represent Bobby?  With mixed emotions—one being whether he will get out of Luandia alive—Damon accepts.  Loosely based on real events that occurred in Nigeria about fifteen years ago, this novel was both engrossing and entertaining.

Scarpetta, by Patricia Cornwell

 It seems with each new novel we find Kay Scarpetta in a different location.  Now married to Benton Wesley, she has left Charleston and is living in Boston.  She also is doing occasional consulting and she is called to New York City to examine an injured patient on the psychiatric ward, Oscar Bane, who only wants to be examined by Scarpetta.  Oscar is a little person and he is considered to be a suspect in the brutal murder of his girlfriend. Oscar claims he stumbled on the murderer, who beat him as he fled the scene.  Oscar also claims that he is being followed and his mind tampered with.  Scarpetta suspects Oscar has self-inflicted his injuries, but doesn’t believe he is tall enough to have committed the murder.  After Oscar is released, another murder occurs with the same pattern as the first.  Although the evidence points again to Oscar, some things don’t add up.  Several of Cornwell’s past novels have been a little uneven but this latest is first rate—with an interesting mystery and all the major characters in the series on hand.

The Associate, by John Grisham

 Kyle McAvoy is on the verge of graduating from law school and he has about decided to work for a few years providing legal services to the poor before joining a big law firm.  But, that’s before the shadowy Bennie Wright shows up on Kyle’s doorstep.  Bennie--definitely not his real name—has a video of several of Kyle’s undergraduate college fraternity brothers having what might be date rape with a college coed, Elaine Keenan, during a drunken party.  Kyle was in the room at the time but only remembers falling asleep after having way too much to drink.  Elaine filed rape charges but they were dropped for lack of evidence.  Bennie has managed to unearth a video of the incident and he threatens to make it public unless Kyle agrees to be his spy and go to work for a certain New York law firm that is representing a defense contractor in a huge lawsuit against another contractor.  The premise had me tingling in anticipation of a taut legal thriller with lots of intrigue, cloak and dagger, near escapes, chases, and well-liked characters in danger.  Unfortunately, what I got was page after page describing the supposedly hard lives of first year associates at big law firms. They sometimes have to work a Saturday. They have to scrape by on a measly 200K for a whole year before they get a raise to 400K.  The poooor thangs!  Boo hoo.  BORING!  There eventually is a pallid, half-hearted sort of resolution to the story but no exciting climax whatsoever. Disappointing.

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