NO SHOES ON THE CARPET!

Those of you who know me know that I’ve been moving into a new place over the last couple of weeks.  During this time, I’ve had no Internet and no cable to occupy my free time.  So Friday, I decided it was time to make good on one of my goals for 2008, to read more.  I stopped by Barnes & Noble and picked up two books to start me off, James Patterson’s Cross and Nick Laird’s Utterly Monkey.  I’m a novice reader and had no rhyme or reason to buy either of these books except I’ve been interested in the Alex Cross character simply from the movies or from word of mouth.  And Utterly Monkey was a bargain book that sounded interesting.

So having nothing to do on Saturday but wait for DirecTV to come and tell me that I couldn’t have my satellite due to a big ass tree, I picked up Cross and settled into my oversized leather chair which is almost too comfortable to read in due to me wanting to take a nap.  Wow, that was a really long run on sentence.  The first thing that you notice about the book and probably Patterson’s writing style, is that the chapters are plentiful and generally only lasting 2 or 3 pages.  Patterson also does a good job of sinking you into the story, combining with the short chapters, helps the story flow pretty quick.  Which is good, because if a book doesn’t have my attention within the first 30 pages, I won’t usually continue it.

So Cross is a character continuation from a group of previously published books, most recognizable is Along Came a Spider.  The book switches from a 1st person perspective of the main character, Alex Cross, and a third person of Michael Sullivan.  Alex Cross is a DC cop, FBI agent, and a private practice therapist who juggles the complexities of being a single parent and a top-notch investigator.  The book follows him as he investigates a serial rapist/murderer who may have also been involved in the murder of his wife.  Michael Sullivan is a hit-man, a sadistic killer, and the serial rapist that Cross is hunting.  He also goes by the name, the Butcher of Sligo, for obvious reasons.  His specialty is killing and/or raping young professional women and them having them live in fear that if they talk, he returns with his tool of choice – the scalpel.

The book is intense and I found it hard to put it down once it got going.  Maybe I should have starting reading Patterson’s books when Alex Cross was first introduced.  I’m not sure if they are written in chronological order or as separate stories with the same main character.  I’m sure I’ll find out though as I intend to read the books in series.

Next up, Utterly Monkey.