“Where does one start to track someone like the
Family Man down? This is the problem confronting Alex Cross and his partner,
lifelong friend John Sampson, as they begin their investigation. It turns out,
however, that they are not the only ones investigating.”
(Review by Barry Meehan)
Triple Cross is somewhat of a welcome rarity in this day and age, because James Patterson is the only name on the cover as author! Patterson has caused more than a stir in literary circles of late with the huge number of “James Patterson” titles that appear on shelves. Most of them are co-authored with others (Bill Clinton, Dolly Parton, Maxine Pietro, Nancy Allen and Richard DiLallo, to name but a few).
He has even been accused of trying to monopolise the literary market, and with 36 titles released last year, it would appear that he might be succeeding! Good luck to him – he obviously saw a gap in the market and took it. Goodness knows how he manages to keep up with the prodigious output of his co-authors, but more power to his pen for doing so!
Anyway, to return to Triple Cross. Patterson’s writing style (when he’s writing on his own) is wonderfully smooth and fluid – a real pleasure. His descriptions are well-sketched, and his characters utterly real. Alex Cross, in particular, is a truly believable character – an investigative consultant for the Washington DC Metro Police, specialising in forensic psychology. He was a homicide detective with the Department for many years, as well as with the FBI in their Behavioural Science Unit, which is the lead unit as far as hunting down serial killers is concerned.
And it’s a serial killer who is the target of this novel – dubbed “The Family Man” as he murders whole families in seemingly non-related incidents, leaving absolutely no trace of his presence at the crime scene – forensic or otherwise. His killing methods are also different at each crime scene, but it is painfully obvious that he has staked out his victims’ homes and schedules extensively, and carried out the crimes with painstaking precision.
Where does one start to track someone like the Family Man down? This is the problem confronting Alex Cross and his partner, lifelong friend John Sampson, as they begin their investigation. It turns out, however, that they are not the only ones investigating.
This is the 30th Patterson novel featuring Alex Cross, and is – in my humble opinion – one of the best. It’s twists and turns will leave you wanting more and more. If – by some slim chance – you have never read one of the Alex Cross novels before, you don’t need to go back to Along Came a Spider (1993) and catch up with all the novels between that first one and this one. Triple Cross does stand on its own, and is highly recommended reading. – Barry Meehan
Triple Cross is published by Century, Penguin Random House UK. ISBN 978-1-529-12528-3
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