Four Blind Mice

Rating:
Summary: "Has succss spoiled Rock Hunter, er ....James Patterson"?
Review: After reading "Four Blind Mice", I am now reluctantly ready to group Patterson in with John Grisham as being in the group of writers who have gotten "fat and lazy" after getting to the top of their field. This grouping is not hastily done becasue both authors have been good storytellers in the past...a few books ago.

I read the first half of the book in an evening and spent more time accidentally finding holes in the writer's logic and examples of "lazy" writing than I thought any writer--particularly a well known, published writer should have. I did not purposely go looking for problems ---they just cropped up. It was distracting. In one of the chapters, for example, the real killers kill a State Trooper in order to hide another one of their crimes. Afterwards Patterson NEVER mentions the State Trooper again. Certainly such a heinous crime would have been mentioned on TV or radio and all point bulletin issued for the trooper's killer(s). Another serious issue arises in my mind, at least, with regard to the period between sentencing of the victim and his execution by lethal injecction on death row. It is very short---a few weeks. Who ever heard of such? Usually, prisoners on death row are there for YEARS before they are executed---if ever.

Maybe its just me, but another minor example of the lazy writing was his repeated use of the word "slather"---at least three times in the fiirst half of the book. At one point, he describes "steaks were slathered with butter"; a few chapters latter, steaks (different ones) were slathered with mushrooms; in still another instance "the killers" slathered on insect repellant. Surely Patterson has a Thesaurus.

Probably the most egregious "problem" as far as I am concerned was the fact that Patterson wiffully changes his "Point of View" from omniscent to first person and back and forth without setting it up or addressing the change anywahere before it happens. At one moment the book is written as if God were the narrator--- i.e. He knows everything; the next moment Alex Cross is the narrator. Both God and Cross are good storytellers but Patterson should've made up his damn mind and used one or the other. Not to do so is very distracting and breaks his contract with the reader---at least it did with me. When I read it, it was if someone or something (maybe his publisher)was holding a gun to his head saying all the while "write faster, write faster" dammit.

Patterson has been a good storyteller in the past. He can do better. Right now, "me thinks" that Mr. PAtterson takes me as well as the rest of the book buying public for granted.


Rating:
Summary: Pitiful
Review: I thought Clancy and Grisham were headed downhill. Patterson has hit rock bottom. One of the more mundane books I've read in years. The bizarre thing was, I couldn't put it down. I wasn't driven by excitement, it was more "can this thing get any better, can something be salvaged here?"

Rating:
Summary: Four Blind Mice
Review: "Four Blind Mice" is the 8th Alex Cross novel by James Patterson. Alex Cross is on his way to resign from the Washington, DC police force when his friend, John Sampson asks him to help clear Sampson's friend Ellis Cooper of the murders of 3 women in North Carolina. The women were painted with blue paint. Before Sampson and Alex can find the real killer, Ellis Cooper is executed. Other murders occur in which the bodies are painted red, white, or blue and the person accused is innocent. These murders occur in places all over the US. Alex and John realize they are dealing with highly professional killers who had all served in Vietnam. Patterson writes page turners and "Four Blind Mice" is no different. The violence is graphic, and the suspense relentless. I thought that this novel was much better than the three Cross novels before it, but not nearly as good as the earlier ones like "Kiss the Girls" and "Jack and Jill". I gave it four stars because of the page-turning suspense.

Rating:
Summary: My first and favorite Patterson
Review: This book got me hooked on Patterson. I was in the library and overheard some women talking about a new Patterson book. I originally bought it for my husband and eventually got around to reading it myself. This lead to reading all of Patterson's books expecially the Alex Cross. Introduced the inlaws to Patterson and they were hooked too. Patterson has become a family affair. Since we are out of Patterson we have moved on to JA Jance and the Joanna Brady series. I hope Patterson produces some more Alex Cross and Lindsay Boxer books if they are better than London Bridges. Had London Brides been my first Patterson it would also have been my last.

Rating:
Summary: Does the man ever write anything bad?
Review: I am a huge fan of Patterson. He has an imagination that just won't quick. Four Blind Mice is another huge success, at least, in my opinion.

Alex Cross is in love with a beautiful detective and wants to plan a future with her. Many miles separate them. Nanna Momma is starting to show her age and Alex is worried as to how long she may be with he and his children. John Sampson has a friend who has been accused of some vicious murders and claims he is innocent.

The thing I love about Patterson is his mutlifaceted stories and his short chapters. He is constantly flipping back and forth from one aspect of his story to another, constantly keeping you on the edge of your seat, and he brings it all together at the end for a fantastic finish. He doesn't let us down in this novel either. His characters come alive on the pages and he starts out at a break-neck speed and doesn't slow til the last word.

There is so much taking place in this novel and he ties it all up beautifully and leaves the reader wanting more. I'm not sure how he does it novel after novel, but he is one of the most consistant writers I have read.

The excitment in this story will captivate you and you will find it hard to put the book down. The ending is just great and there is a surprise at the end that I didn't see coming. Pick this one up, sit back with a cup of hot coffee, and enjoy.

Rating:
Summary: Decent, but not the best Cross book...
Review: Four Blind Mice I thought was pretty good at times, but sometimes I thought that it got real boring too. Yet Four Blind Mice is about three Vietnam vetrans committing cold-blooded murders. The book begas with one of Sam's best Army buddies getting tried for murder of a woman, they found his Army knife with his DNA and fingerprints on it. Yet he goes to jail and is put on death-row for the murder. Yet he pleas his innocents to Alex and Sam. Once the ball get's rolling, they try to find out who is responsible for the death of this woman. The three Blind mice are sick individuals who tape their murders and watch them like they were a Hollywood movie. Their next victim is a prostiture named Vanessa which they take her to the backwoods and kill her at point-blank range. They also kill a cop near Fort Bragg because he was at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Then a break in the case for Alex, a mysterious woman calls Alex telling him that Sam's friend didn't kill the woman, but the Army refuses to believe that he didn't kill any woman, and that he was with this wife at the time of the killing. Something does not make sense to Alex, why would someone kill for fun and who is setting people up? The thing about the three mice is that they first started to paint their victims blue (sort of like the Blue Man Group), and they make it look like a pact suicide. Yet it isn't. As they get deeper into the case, the murders start to come back, and Jamilla, Alex's girlfriend at the moment comes to see him, and they spend some time away from the case, but then they are back on it, and finally Alex's get a mysterious e-mail from a person calling himself the foot soldier, and trying to help Alex and Sam. Then, the mice go to West Point and kill a general and his wife in cold-blood, and take a couple of Asian women hostage and kill them and have sex with them. I have not finished the book, but the book is decent, and personally if you want to read a good Alex Cross book, read Kiss The Girls.