Four Blind Mice

Rating:
Summary: Not his best but not as bad as some are saying.
Review: Four Blind Mice is not one of my favorites in the Alex Cross series. However, it is still an interesting read. For fans of the series, the book will appeal more to you just to catch up on Alex's life and new love. This time the killers are three ex-Army contract killers who are hired by another to frame ex-soldiers for murder. Cross gets involved when his partner/best friend John Sampson asks for him to help out an old Army buddy who is on death row in North Carolina. If you are a fan of the series you won't want to miss this one. However, if you have never read Patterson's Cross series try Kiss the Girls or Along Came A Spider before jumping into this one.

Rating:
Summary: Not What I was Hoping For...
Review: Four Blind Mice is a book that sounds as though it should be excellent. Indeed, it is fast-paced and the pages fly by because the short chapters are so snappy, but I have several problems with it that mean the rating I have given is low.

First of all I just could not get much motivation to read the book as the plot went all over the place. There were so many 'bad guys' and killings and needless violence and knife-wielding maniacs that reading it was a real hard slog. At the end, when the Fourth Blind Mice was revealed, I was left scratching my head trying to remember when he'd appeared in the novel before.

I also did not get really involved with the sub-plots in Alex Cross' private life. His latest romantic interest - another cop called Jamilla - did not really interest me. In the other books featuring him I have read he has dated so many women, all of which he has had 'serious' feelings for, but the relationships always fizzle out or the woman is kidnapped/stalked/attacked etc - these story lines are becoming a bit of a bore. One of the best things about the book was John Sampson's new relationship with Billie with was very nice and heartfelt. The other characters, Nana and the children, were okay, but I felt they didn't add much to the story.

Overall Four Blind Mice should be a quick read but I kept on putting it off and must have read about three other books to the end whilst I was struggling through this novel. I could not compare this book with some of the others like Kiss The Girls because it was not in the same league.

JoAnne

Rating:
Summary: Like putting a puzzle together with an exacto knife......
Review: James Patterson, it seems, has let the ball drop for a bit with this novel. This tale involves old Army friends, people in high places and a lot of unlikely possibilities that just never gel into a rich full story. It feels like putting a puzzle together but you have to take an exacto knife out to get the pieces to really fit, and then the picture is just all wrong.

There are so many bad guys that you have to wonder how the Army could have functioned at all, and the only real decent guy from the Army seems to be the one facing the death penalty. There are not enough portions of reality to hold the book together. This is definitely not one Patterson's better works.

Rating:
Summary: I don't read
Review: I'm not a reader at all. In fact, I've not finished a book in my life. I made it through college on lectures and notes alone. Ok, you get the point. I was at an airport a few weeks back and my plane was very delayed. You've been there, you know how boring it can be. I broke down and bought my first book since College (5 yrs ago), John Patterson's Four Blind Mice. It is the first book that has ever held my attention. I am only half way through it but I think it is really good. Then again, I don't read much so don't have anything to compare it to. I'm not finished either but I know I will finish this book. If you are someone who reads a lot then chances are you will not like this book. I say that from the reviews I've read here from most Patterson fans. I on the other read a little of it everyday and can't wait to see how it ends.

Rating:
Summary: Blind Mice
Review: Three Blind Mice was one of the only books I've ever been able to read and it held my interest. I've read 3 other of James Patterson books, and this is the first Alex Cross book. Beach House was another book of his that I liked very much. In Three Blind Mice, the plot was very well in-depth but the ending was a surprise. I thought that there would've been a very intriguing ending but non-the-less it was a pretty good book. These "good" soldiers that continued to kill and rape women and kill men in their own country still perplexed me. That fact the book kept you at spontaneous levels by not knowing what the killers were going to do also kept the book interesting. How they found out their names and stuff from Vietnam files found at some governmental institution, that kind of made no sense because that'd be countless hours of research and just too hard to track down certain individuals from that war and they were experts at killing over there so I'm sure no records would be there to be found. Also, the dolls and stuff found at the houses were neat. It added a lot of suspense to the story. Overall the story was relatively easy to understand and it was easy to read.

Rating:
Summary: Losing his touch
Review: I find it hard to believe the reviewers quoted on the covers and front pages of this book actually read it. The plot is choppy, made worse by 1-2 page "chapters". A sloppy lack of follow-up (what happened to girlfriend Marcia? Who wrote the faked "love letters"? etc.) makes it confusing and frustrating to follow. Mix in excessive amount of graphic violence, which does nothing to further the plot. Add in characters who speak in unrealistic and stilted dialogue, and you have this book. A huge disappointment.

Rating:
Summary: Comic Book without pictures for Grow-ups
Review: James Patterson used to be a good writer, back in the days of Along Came a Spider. But now if you compare his work to Michael Connolley, James Hall, Dennis Lehane and the other terrific writers publishing today, Patterson keeps coming up short. He can't seem to tell a believable tale anymore, although his characters seem likeable or despisable enough. He can still write a good scene, and there are some very good scenes in Four Blind Mice, but motivation seems not to interest him as a writer any longer, nor does plot. Granted, there's such a thing as the willing suspension of disbelief that allows us to enjoy fiction from fairytales to sci-fi, but the world of Alex Cross is supposed to be present day Washington DC. It's apparently an alternate universe, though, where the Vietnam war took place about 10 years later than in ours, and where the American criminal justice system is efficient enough to regularly execute the convicted mere months after their trial, but incompetent enough to miss blatantly obvious connections between the murders such as dolls and evil eye amulets left in the homes of the supposed killers and the grisly habit of painting the victims, most of whom have been killed with army knives. At one point Patterson has his characters--policemen, a psychiatrist, and a lawyer--express some doubt as to the framed person's guilt, on the basis that there was too much evidence too easily attained, but they never make much of these obvious connections. On OUR earth I can't imagine such conversations ever happening. I wonder if letters are written backwards over there, too, and if the Flash looks like the God Mercury.

So Patterson isn't a literate writer, or even a careful one any more. But you can still enjoy his books, and in some sense they are perfect for post-literate America. I found that although I was disappointed with Four Blind Mice in many ways, my disappointment wasn't complete if I changed my expectations. Instead of comparing Patterson's recent work to Lehane, Hall, Connolley, or even early Patterson, if I think of it as a sort of comic book without pictures for grown-ups it seems to work. (I don't say adults, because there's no real sexuality to it, in spite of what a few of the other reviewers claim.) Patterson is better compared to Stan Lee, and Alex Cross isn't that far removed from Lee's creation Peter Parker, aka Spider Man, with his crime fighting and home-life problems coming into conflict; even his identity conflicts as a superhero find their reflection in Cross's character. Stylistically there are many similiarities, too. Comics are action-heavy with fairly flat, sometimes corny dialogue and often weak plots; so is Patterson's writing. Characters are boldly good or bad in both, and often motivations are also black and white. There's no mystery in a Spider Man comic, nor is there in an Alex Cross book any more. These aren't stories about clever deduction or uncanny observation. Instead, essentially someone tells Cross who the bad guys are. And like comics but not real life, unfortunately, characters come back from the dead. So although Patterson makes what seems an obvious ploy for us to compare his work to Thomas Harris--Cross's visit to Kyle Craig in a high security prison to gain information on the current killings struck me as an AMAZING reference to Harris' Hannibal Lecter (amazing in its blatant appropriation, not in its quality!)--we're better off thinking DC and Marvel. Hey, maybe THAT'S the "DC" in Cross's home town, not District of Columbia.

Rating:
Summary: So-so who dun it
Review: With a limited selection of English language books available, and minimal amounts in the "who dun it" genre, this was a logical choice. After reading all of the other books in the Alex Cross series, when I saw this one available, I naturally purchased it.

While a life outside of the crime solving world is a part of any detective, Patterson is focusing more and more on the "away from work" love life and family life of his heroes. Should Nana Mama's health play a role that is a second plot line instead of insight into a character? Or the romance aspect? Again, insight, not an additional plot line. The two secondary "personal life" plots take away from the main story.

Rating:
Summary: Utterly Dismal
Review: Predicated on the glowing reviews from others, this commentator is obviously out on a very far limb here, but........... I found this novel woefully pedestrian and far from any kind of who-dun-it. As is becoming more and more the case when Patterson writes Cross.......our Ali-lookalike hero tends mostly to stumble on solutions or have them handed to him rather than deduce or discover real answers. I find myself ever more engrossed with the health issues facing Nana Mama (and I was hardly on the edge of my seat over that fat nothing of a crisis in this volume) than I am with Alex's musings and hopes for Southeast renaissances. This book was advertised for it's spellbinding mystery. No such thing. I was never more bored by a Patterson offering. It's a pity too. Once upon a time the Alex Cross series DID offer some real taut mystery and suspense. No longer. Watch Alex. See him stumble onto the answers without himself having a clue. Have anonymous benefactors provide all the answers at the right seconds. It all holds together on contrivance and writers tricks. Oh yes, and Sampson's story is hardly the big deal it was advertised to be.

Rating:
Summary: derivative pot boiler
Review: This book is acceptable to reliev boredom on a long flight.

There is one original idea, I think, committing a murder by framing the victim for another murder. This might be remotely plausible once, but considering the length of the appeals process in the US, odds of sucess are modest. Postulating this as a method for commiting serial murders is absurd.

Derivative: Example A: The creepy serial killer behind bars that the deetective consults -- does this sound like a famous movie plot or what?? Example B: A bunch of Tom Clancey military jargon dropping -- which isn't even done right except for MPs and a couple of specialized uses, the last "service revolver" (yet *revoler!*) dates back to WWI and was taken out of service decades ago.

Even a non=lawyer could see that the most effective to have saved the first victim would have been an appeal based on the prosecution withholding evidence from the defense.

The sex scenes are a waste of paper. They sould like they were written by the same computer that is used to insert them zillions of other pot-boilers.

If you can borrow a used copy from a friend, it might be worth the price.