James Patterson is an asshole.
After this definitive statement, you must have got an
inkling of the direction in which this review would now proceed.
There was a time during the formative years of reading as a
habit that I used to read everything written by Patterson. The Alex Cross books
were awesome. I loved the short and snappy paragraphs. A 500 page tome of his
contained, on an average 120 odd chapters and most of these ended on a
cliffhanger. It was like a dream come true for a thriller fan.
Cross was a great creation. After that came the not so great
Women’s Murder Club (what a bloody pretentious name), the Bennett series and
what fucking not. He began collaborating with lots of authors and all the books
slowly started resembling one another.
Because of the idiot that I am, it took me nearly 40 odd
books to realize that the man had transformed into a hack and was fooling his
readers left, right and center. I stopped buying his books.
Flipkart was offering huge discount on thrillers this month
and that is how I ended up purchasing this.
When I approached this, I had no idea about Private,
the world’s “most exclusive” detective agency and monsieur Knight and company. After
reading this, I don’t think I would be delving into their world again.
The story is set during the London Olympics of 2012. A psychopath
who goes by the name of Cronus is targeting the games along with three ladies
called the Furies. Knight, a detective working with Private, gets involved because
of high personal stakes.
By giving his killer a Greek name, Patterson gets to write
about some mythological bullshit whose hollowness made me cringe. There are war
crimes tied in, rather fatuously, to the plot.
The pacing of the novel has always been Patterson’s strength
and that may just be the only saving grace of this book. The absurd events keep
on happening at a breakneck pace.
I have never been exceptionally good at predicting the
killer in a mystery book. Even the most pedestrian whodunits end up astonishing
me. Imagine my surprise, then, when nearly 150 pages from the end, I had an
epiphany about the true identity of the criminal and it turned out to be right.
There are chapters dedicated to bollocks like the spirit of
Olympics.
The characters are ludicrous caricatures. The participants
in the Olympics don’t have a single mean bone in their body. The athletes
perform so many selfless acts that they begin resembling good Samaritans more
than hard nosed athletes. I nearly puked after reading the various instances of
human “kindness”.
The biggest unintended joke of the book is the motive behind
the crimes. You won’t believe your fucking eyes because it is so fucking
stupid.
I won’t be wasting any more time with a Patterson book.
As the saying goes: Fool
me once, shame on you and fool me twice, shame on me. Mr. Patterson, you have
fooled me enough number of times. I only have two words for you along with a
gesture involving my middle finger. I think you are smart enough to take the
hint and fuck off.
No comments:
Post a Comment