• I, ALEX CROSS
• by James Petterson
• [rated by PBS readers as #81!!]
• 360 pages

3/9/19

50 PAGES IN –

My guilty pleasure is reading detective novels. At first sight, the worst thing about Patterson is that if I love his character, Alex Cross, there are about a million books in the series.

Nonetheless, I’m thrilled to be reading a mystery. It is very sparse writing, to the point, no extra information given (so you are already involved and wanting to know more). I like the way you are instantly viewing this case from two different angles. Often the second angle, if there is one, shows up later. But Patterson is so confident of his characters that he introduces everyone and their angles right away.

I’m off. This may well be my fastest read in the whole bunch. Well, this and Charlotte’s Web!

Last note; I have read some great detectives in my day. I like the pacing and instant character development here, but so far, I haven’t yet seen why Mr. Cross earns this high honor above all the others.

3/15/19

Whew. This is fast. Fast and brutal.

On the one hand, after Junot Diaz and Kurt Vonnegut, I feel like I’m reading the guiltiest pleasure of all. A bunch

of law enforcement officers busting up a prostitution ring? Now we’re talking!

I’ve always loved brevity and pacing and this thing reads like a bat out of hell.

I know there will be a moment, when I’m on page 5000 of Crime & Punishment, when I’ll be silently yearning for a good prostitution raid and some pacing. I will have lost the will to live by the fifth page describing some ornate hall or a peasant family forced to catch and eat rats to live. And right about then, I’ll be missing this.

But the fact is – I’m halfway through and Alex himself is still not really dawning on me. Every time I open up the book and start reading passages about his family, I have to remind myself of the members of it. They don’t stick out. Well, except for Nana, but that’s because she keeps almost dying so she comes to mind.

And the fact is that this was apparently a huge series and maybe pretty far back (again, I am in the dark as to the dates, due to my complete unwillingness to do any research). But Alex doesn’t even compare to Spenser, Susan & Hawk. And the pacing, well it’s great, but it isn’t particularly unique. Again, this could have preceded and set the stage for other fast page turners, so that might factor in.

I’ll whip through and see if these halfway points change…

3/22/19

Considering how overwhelmingly full my life is, I whipped through this little opus. As I said before, it was the ultimate guilty pleasure. It makes me scared of going from this to some huge Tolstoy thing. But on the other hand, I have to get there at some point and maybe better

after something fluffy like this.

I enjoyed reading it, because I like crime stuff that is paced super fast. Having said that, I’m a little surprised that this series was so ultimately popular.

The characters were well etched, but with no discernible subtlety. But that is Patterson’s choice. He wants to be all plot and that is a valid choice, I guess.

He also likes to make sure we know he can write this stuff dark. Okay. Some love that. I find it like he is sort of strutting to do it that way.

There is a feeling I have that I’m about to be drowned in a huge opus. Have to pick the next one right away. But in the meantime, it was fun to read something with this kind of electrifying pacing. I doubt I will have that experience too many more times with this list.

Okay here I go to pick the next one!