From the #1 New York Times bestselling master of the terrifying thriller comes a chilling, edge-of-the-seat psychological thriller that tells the gripping tale of a serial killer whose cunning and lust for violence rival those of Hannibal Lecter.
Publishers Weekly
This second big winter thriller by a writer named Patterson (see Fiction Forecasts, Oct. 19) features a villain (a multiple-personality serial killer/kidnapper) whom the publisher hopes will remind readers of Thomas Harris's Hannibal Lecter, and a hero who is compared to those of Jonathan Kellerman. Unfortunately, the novel has few merits of its own to set against those authors' works. Hero Alex Cross is in fact a black senior detective in Washington, D.C., who is also a psychiatrist and has a facile but not entirely convincing line of sentimental-cynical patter. The villain is Gary Soneji/Murphy (read Hyde/Jekyll), who kills for recognition, and finally kidnaps the kids of prominent parents. Alex is soon on the case, more enraged by Gary's killing of poor ghetto blacks than by the Lindbergh-inspired kidnapping, and becomes involved with a gorgeous, motorcycle-riding Secret Service supervisor who is not what she seems. Soneji/Murphy is eventually captured--but can the bad part of him be proven guilty? There is even a hint at the end that he may survive for a sequel, though the reader has virtually forgotten him by then. Spider reads fluently enough, but its action and characters seem to have come out of some movie-inspired never-never land. If a contemporary would-be nail-biter is to thrill as it should, it urgently needs stronger connections to reality than this book has. Come back, Thomas Harris!
Categories:
- Mystery, Thriller & Suspense
- Thrillers & Suspense
- Crime
- Serial Killers
- Crime
- Thrillers & Suspense
Publisher : Little Brown
Author : Patterson, James
Language : English
Edition : First Edition
Published :1993-03-25
Number Of Pages : 448
Binding : hardcover
ISBN-10 : 0316693642
ISBN-13 : 9780316693646
Item weight : 1.25 lb
Dimensions : 1.5 in x 5.8 in x 8.5 in
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