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Avg. Rating: 3.86
Riveting!
Jack and Jill by James Patterson will have the reader on the edge of their seats! I found this "thriller" to be one of his best yet! I was hanging onto every page and actually read this book in one day - I just could not put it down. Dr. Alex Cross is confronted by solving two different murders - committed by two different murderers, yet both are baffling and both are "perfect". The first killer is killing children in the neighborhood of his son's school and the second killer, known as Jack and Jill, are killing celebrities in the Washington, DC area. Cross is then engaged by the White House to protect the President of the United States and his wife from the notorious Jack and Jill. Cross has his hands full and his loyalties divided. Can he do it? What is so compelling about this story is that Patterson gets you into the mind of Jack and Jill and well as the child killer. You feel all of their intense emotions and motivations for killing. So, as the reader, you know the killer's next victim as well as knowing what Alex Cross is doing to get the killer. Patterson has you in the mind of the cat as well as the mouse! I love it! I really love the character of Alex Cross and with each and every "Cross" book I read, I find Cross' character utterly fascinating. Once again, Patterson has you guessing the "real" identity of all the killers and the end comes as a shocker!! If you love shockers - this book will have you floored, but then again, also read Roses Are Red by Patterson - that's a shocker as well!
My first Patterson novel......not impressed
Usually, there is some merit when a lot of hype surrounds an author, so, reflecting upon that, I decided to give "Jack and Jill" a read. Maybe I should have started with another of his works, because J&J was a disappointment. I don't intend for this to be a scathing review, just honest. I felt Patterson's prose was extremely juvenile and anything and everything about the story, the characters, the pacing was cliched to the hilt. Cliched to the point of becoming an unfunny joke. I found his constant "namedropping" to be exhaustingly irritating. For instance, his description of one of the villians was, "vaguely reminiscent of the actor Kevin Costner in The Bodyguard." I personally believe this is a lack of imagination at play, and because it happened frequently in this novel, I have a hunch it infects his other works. I actually finished this book to see just how stale it could possibly get. Upon finishing, it ranked fairly high on the "stale scale." The main reason I'm writing this review is because this was a number one bestseller, and I read it...and I just don't understand how that became so. The Hardy Boys Mysteries I read as a child were more mature and better written than this particular novel. I am considering reading another of his works to compare, but this book left such a bitter taste, it'll be a while before I get around to it..if at all.
Descent begins
Once again, Detective Alex Cross is the main character in another James Patterson book. As usual, the story is very fast-paced, with quick, short chapters. Patterson knows how to build tension and accomplish an efficient thriller. This time, Cross and his team have to face two simultaneous enemies: the first, a pair of loose-cannon killers, acting in the high-society and political circles in Washington, D.C.; the other, an insane killer murdering innocent children."Jack and Jill" is not as good as the previous two books in the Cross series; although Alex Cross is less superhero-like and more humnan in this third installment, the two parallel stories are confusing, and Patterson was not able to create villains and minor characters as well developed as the ones he created in "Along came a spider" and "Kiss the girls". I understand that "Jack and Jill" is somewhat a milestone in the Alex Cross series. From now on, the books are really a step down the ladder. Grade 8.0/10
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