Jack & Jill

September 2, 1996
Patterson's most recent thriller, Hide and Seek, lacked his customary hero, Alex Cross, and didn't catch fire with readers. Here, Patterson brings back the black psychiatrist and Washington, D.C., homicide cop (Kiss the Girls, etc.) for a gripping game of death that will have fans flocking. Two simultaneous investigations bear down on Cross: the first concerns the killings perpetrated by a duo known as "Jack and Jill," who are murdering famous people (beginning with a U.S. senator) in Washington, taunting the police and "practicing for the big one"; the second involves the brutal slayings of young black children in Cross's own Southeast D.C. neighborhood. The Washington P.D. makes Cross its liaison with a frantic Secret Service, FBI and CIA while he sets up his own off-duty team to track the child-killer. Through crisp cross-cutting of multiple points of view, first-person and third, Patterson grabs readers right from the beginning and sweeps them along toward riveting dual climaxes. He adds texture by devoting space to Cross's concern about his own motherless son and daughter (the first murdered child attended the same grammar school as Alex's boy), his growing interest in the school's attractive principal, his dealings with his octogenarian grandmother, Nana Mama (think of an acerbic Dilsey from The Sound and the Fury) and life in the largely black Southeast district. It's fine, full-blooded entertainment from start to finish, with a last-page surprise from an earlier Cross nemesis promising at least one more Cross installment to come. Literary Guild main selection; simultaneous Time Warner AudioBook.

Dual narrators and the clever use of sound effects such as gunshots and crowd noises contribute to this thriller featuring psychologist Alex Cross. Narrators John Rubenstein and Blair Underwood offer their own styles as the story unfolds through different points of view. Underwood perfects Alex Cross's deliberate nature with a steady performance and succeeds in building tension appropriately. Rubenstein's rendering of the killers is equally impressive, showing the aloofness of the almost inhuman sociopaths. Although the abridgment may cause listeners to feel they've missed some of the plot along the way, there is enough to tie everything together in the end. K.M.D. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine

May 15, 1996
Patterson's popular protagonist, Alex Cross, wrestles with a double murder.