Lately my father has been keeping me supplied with Nora Roberts' novels (yes, you read that right - my father lol) and I've mostly been reading them. It's been a case of whatever comes to my hand first. I dont think a morning starts well unless I've read a couple chapters of something.
I'm an eclectic reader, usually reading several books at one time, and generally a mixture of fiction and non-fiction. The last few weeks it's been mostly brain candy as I've got so much going on at the same time. Anyway, after leaving physical therapy one day last week, I stopped into Costco and took a quick peep at the book section before gathering the items I'd actually gone in for. Picked up James Patterson's Cross and I've quickly devoured it over the last couple days.
I'm a fan of his Alex Cross novels and when I read on the blurb that this one had Alex going after the man who murdered his beloved wife, I was sold. In my opinion, Patterson does a great job of creating characters you can care about. Alex Cross is intelligent, warm, caring, a good grandson to Nana Mama (what a wonderful character she is! I can picture her so clearly!), a great but not infalible father to his kids, as loyal a friend as anyone could want, and suffers from some of the same insecurities and anxieties that many of us do. If he were a real person, I'd love to have him for a friend. Hard for me to argue whether or not Patterson, who is "white" does a good job of making Alex convincingly "black" as I'm of English-Irish descent but I believe he does.
Was thinking about how Patterson's chapters are often short. Not what you'd typically think of as chapters. A better description might be episodes, or moments - telling moments, naturally. All I know is it works. He's a master of suspense who keeps the reader wanting more. His brevity works well for him because his prose is honed down so that as in poetry each word weighs more. It's no wonder his novels translate well to the screen because his descriptions are clear and concise. And speaking of film, it was sort of cute that in this novel he has Alex in a DC club where someone tells him a nice antedote about Morgan Freeman. If you don't know, Morgan Freeman has played the Alex Cross character and very well, I might add. So well that now when I read about Alex Cross, it's Morgan Freeman I visualize.
Sadly, I reached the end of the novel today. Tomorrow will have to dig in my stash for something else to read and sometime this week, I'm going back to Costco to pick up Double Cross.
What are you reading lately?
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