A good fictional thriller
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Does it matter where it was set? Its fiction for heavens sake.As far as thrillers go this was very good. The characters were deep and enthralling, keeping your interest all the way through. There was enough suspense to keep you turning the pages, and plenty of action. If you enjoy Lee Child`s Jack Reacher books then this will please you. I`m a series fan and enjoy Child and Michael Connelly books immensely, if you like that kind of thriller read the `Soft Target` books by Conrad Jones. They are unputdownable!! Back to the review, ten out of ten.
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not his best
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couldnt wait to read this as i am a big fan of the alex crosss novels and have read some of them several times over.i was extremely dissapointed as it was nowhere near as good as the others! the story was boring and definately not a page turner,a random appearance by kyle craig at the end was odd to say the least and felt as if if was just thrown in at the last minute,the story was far too obvious and i could see the ending a mile off.
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Crossing the Atlantic wasn't a good idea...
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James Patterson moves his protagonist from his well-known Washington DC environment to Africa and that turns out to be a bad idea - for Alex Cross and the reader. Patterson paints an understandably somber picture of the situation in the Darfur camps and of police corruption in Nigeria, but his halfhearted attempt to write a thriller with a political twist goes nowhere. Take a look at 'Exile' by Richard North Patterson to see how it should be done. The large font and the spacing between the too many chapters cannot disguise the fact that this story could easily be printed in half the number of pages. In my modest opinion 'Cross Country' is not up to par and so far marks the nadir of James Patterson's Cross-series.
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Ronrig Dundee
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The book gives the appearance of being a typical sized novel, but when it comes to reading it can be done in hours as opposed to days. Large print and borders together with small chapters covering a page and a half on average accounts for the size makes poor value for money. As for the storyline it is absurd. Cross goes to Africa and in a matter of days in he has his nose broken twice during numerous beatings he takes but when he gets home nobody seems to notice any damage to his appearance. That's just one example of this poor novel. It appears Patterson is on a treadmill regards output and the quality is suffering.
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Good but not the best
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`Cross Country' puts Detective Alex Cross on the most dangerous case of his career. A hitman for hire known as The Tiger has been killing and butchering whole families in Washington DC and this leads Cross to Africa where he is completely out of his territory and he can trust no one.
I've been a huge fan of the Cross series for many years, having read all of the books numerous times and although this is a very gripping and exciting read with not one slow chapter, it isn't up to the usual high standards that I'd expect from the series as they are usually the best of the best when it comes to Patterson novels, this however was just good, nothing special.
The African setting was a welcome change though as it took it away from the usual DC background, giving a chilling a disturbing insight into what life in Lagos, Nigeria and Sierra Leone must be like. There were too many near-deaths for Cross in this book which got to the point where it became ridiculous (literally once every couple of chapters).
His love interest in Africa seemed a little unnecessary too, making it seem like Cross will fall for any woman he works with, and felt like just a bit of a story-filler to bulk up the content of the story. Another thing I didn't like about this book is that it felt like it was going to finish 3 or 4 times before it actually did, making me think that Patterson couldn't make his mind up on how to end it so just dragged it on, as the last 50 or so pages could have been cut down a lot.
Although there are a lot of flaws with this one, it is still a very tense and exciting book that can be read in no time at all (I finished it in 2 sittings). Overall it is a very good thriller but is just not at the high quality level of other books in the series such as Along Came A Spider, Kiss the Girls and even the more recent Double Cross. I'd definitely recommend it to Alex Cross fans as it is a decent addition but just don't except anything spectacular.
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