The 58th Keeper _ Interesting Twist On Old Fairytale

The 58th Keeper by R. G. Bullet

Admittedly, after reading several pages, my first thought was, "Ah, here's another Harry Potter want-to-be." After all, Archy Bass is a young, poor, British orphan with few friends. He's not in magic school but a special boy's school, which is still a separate sort of realm. I found the novel slow to start and could only visualize Archy vaguely: a boy with brown hair in a bowl cut. Archy's world seemed rather ho-hum with an atmosphere slightly reminicent of the school Jane Eyre attended.

Move forward, and Vincent, son of a billionaire and, oddly enough, one of Archy's few friends presents Archy with the opportunity for a vacation, a rare thing for a boy of his means. Although the vacation turns out to be -- a surprise to Vincent too -- a working vacation, the exotic locale and opportunity to escape his humdrum existence is very pleasing to Archy. Until, that is, he meets with a strange rug merchant on the beach. From there on, the novel picks up speed and makes the reader wonder, what's next?

For Archy, what's next is beyond his wildest imagination. His life is turned upside down by the mysterious rug he is talked into purchasing from the man he met on the beach in Turkey. This is where R. G. Bullet makes a creative leap, putting a new twist on the old fable about a flying rug. I won't spoil the surprise but will just say, this isn't Ali Baba's rug. Once Archy's life begins to change, the actions of the primary characters bring them more clearly into focus although I found myself visualizing their appearance along the lines of Rowlings' Hermione and a blond in stead of redhaired Ron. I still found it difficult to come up with a visual image of Archy, however. The character I could most easily visualize was Ward who reminded me of Shaggy in the Scooby-Doo cartoons.

I happen to be a highly visual person and enjoy novels I can easily "see" in my mind, like movies unfolding. I found this novel uneven in that regard. I remember little in the way of visual images from the first part of the novel. It is as if it were filmed in a dingy black and white while later sections such as the site of the act of restitution were colorful and detailed. Perhaps this was an intentionaldevice?

All in all, the novel is something I'd pass along to my grandson who is thirteen. Would love to see what he thinks. And I would pick up another novel by this author to see how his writing continues to develop.

The Language Of Flowers: Debut Novel By Vanessa Diffenbaugh A Must Read

I have been fascinated by the Victorian era for as long as I can remember. As best I can recall, it probably started when I began reading 19th century British novels back in fifth or sixth grade. The culture as described by Dickens and Eliot and so on was rich in detail and full of curious customs that were intriguing. Much, much later, as a graduate student, I made the 19th century British novel one of my speciality areas.

When you mention the Victorian era, most people think of excess. Images of Victorian fashion with an excess of flounces, ruching, ruffles and so on come to mind. We think of the "gingerbread" trim on stately homes. Or perhaps images of Victorian interiors such as a parlour filled with intricately carved furniture and fireplace mantels, Oriental vases filled with peacock feathers, paisley shawls from India draped across pianos and tables, a heavily embellished crazy quilt of rich fabrics across the back of a sofa. Such images are, of course, drawn from the better known lives of the well-to-do portion of the population. Victorians loved, not excess, but detail in craftsmanship. They were intrigued by the designs of the various cultures the expanding British Empire encountered. Those who could afford to indulge in such pleasures did so. This same privileged class also greatly enjoyed entertainment that included, beyond the usual fondness for classic arts, games, mysteries of all sorts, and intrigue. There were various courting games and practices (often referred to as 'conceits') such as the Language of Fans, a type of flirting in which specific movements of a lady's fan advised a would be suitor of her inclinations, the Language of Gloves, gifts of R.E.G.A.R.D. rings and so on.

The Language of Fans and gloves and REGARD rings have vanished but a vestige of something called The Language Of Flowers remains with us today in the common knowledge that a gift of roses is intended to be symbolic of love. A charming little book, The Language Of Flowers, illustrated by the famous Kate Greenway is perhaps the best known of surviving books that purport to assign meanings to various flowers and plants. This symbolic system of communication was very popular in Victorian times and formed a well loved part of courtship. Ladies would delight in receiving and deciphering the messages contained in bouquets and nosegays. I've owned a copy of Greenway's book for many years and I once had a sideline creating silk floral arrangements for weddings using it's symbolism. I included a card with each arrangement to explain the wishes conveyed by the flowers. Naturally, when I read Pump Up Your Book was representing Vanessa Diffenbaugh's debut novel, The Language Of Flowers, I was eager to read it. My thanks to Pump Up Your Book and the publisher, Ballentine Books, for an advance reading copy.

Diffenbaugh does not disappoint. She grabs the reader with the first line: "For eight years, I dreamed of fire." Stop; don't read any further. Fire is a powerful symbol in and of of itself. We know what it is, what it can do. The word alone is enough to start adrenalin flowing, isn't it? With that line, the reader enters the present day world of the principal character, Victoria Jones. It is Victoria's eighteenth birthday and she is about to be emancipated from the foster care system. The birthday greeting she is given by the other girls in the group home provides a vivid glimpse of the world Victoria is about to leave. It also causes the reader to wonder what it is about Victoria that warrents such behavior.

Victoria is not a character the reader instantly loves. She is not charming, beautiful, or especially talented. Victoria does not communicate well or relate well to others. She is angry and unpredictable. It is only through the alternating chapters that offer glimpses of Victoria's past that the reader gains a little understanding of the reasons for her behavior and feels more compassion for her. Near the end of the first chapter, Victoria does something that brings the light of hope into the darkness and draws the reader closer. About to head out into the world on her own, Victoria leaves a gift of a purple dahlia for each girl at the group home. She knows the girls won't understand her secret language but it's important to her to leave them a message of hope for their futures.

Victoria's own future is uncertain. The foster care system isn't set up to adequately prepare foster children for a life on their own. Although Victoria is allotted three months in a transitional home before being thrown entirely on her own, she doesn't receive the guidance or training she needs to make her own way. She ends up homeless, living in a public park until a local florist gives her a chance at employment and discovers her talent with flower arrangement.

Once Victoria used the language of flowers, learned from a foster mother, to express sentiments best left unspoken in the world of foster care. Sentiments like grief, anger and hate. This takes a turn around as she discovers in her florist work a gift for helping others by creating arrangements based on the language of flowers. Here again, hope asserts itself. The interactions with customers who need her special gift, a budding friendship with the florist, Renata, and a few others Renata introduces her to, cause Victoria to begin to have hope for herself.

When a trip to the floral market with Renata introduces Victoria to a young man (Grant) who seems to understand her secret language, Victoria's world expands further. This reader, who did not like Victoria at first, was carried along learning about the young woman as she considered her past, re-evaluated actions that had brought her to this point, and explored the new feelings awakened by the developing relationship with Grant. What does Victoria decide about what family means, second chances and the possibility of redemption? You need to read the novel yourself and find out first hand.

I know of at least one critic who argued that the novel's ending was too sweet, too much light after so much darkness. However, we are too familiar with horror stories about the foster care system and while it definitely needs improvement, as the author can attest from her own experiences as a care giver, don't we need a little light in the darkness? Let us remember that the human spirit is capable of enduring much and still bringing forth it's best qualities. Or, as Diffenbach's site asserts: "Any one can grow into something beautiful."

Vanessa Diffenbaugh, thank you for a good read! I send you a bouquet of Canterbury bells (gratitude), laurel (in recognition of your success), sage (good health and long life), Lupine (imagination) and forsythia (anticipation of your next novel).

Book review: Seven Year Switch by Claire Cook

Seven Year Switch: Revision In Life

I'd never heard of Claire Cook before I read a blurb about her novel, Seven Year Switch. The blurb stated "every seven years you become a completely new person," and went on to say Seven Year Switch was a novel about "accepting who you are and growing into who you want to be" (NY:Voice; June 8, 2010; Hardcover blurb). That grabbed my attention. While I don't know that I can agree with the seven year time frame, I do recognize that there are definitely moments when you stop to evaluate who and what you are and give thought to revision.

When I taught composition, it was important to make my students understand the difference between editing and revision. I'd write the word "revision" on the blackboard and ask them to tell me what it meant. Then I'd write "re -- about" and "vision -- sight" and explain that revision is the act of going back through what we've written and trying to see it again as if it was new. In revising, I told them. we would be asking ourselves if we had communicated what we intended and how we might improve upon what we had done.

It seems to me the same thing happens in life. You reach a time and place, perhaps triggered by a specific event, perhaps without any identifiable trigger, and you stop and ask yourself if you've become the person you wanted to be. You think about how you see yourself and wonder how others see you. You ask yourself whether you are living the life you planned, the life you want. You evaluate what you find, decide whether or not you are satisfied with what is. If you aren't happy with what you find, then you begin to ask what you're going to do about that.

Cook's main character, Jill Murray, once had a promising career teaching business executives how to communicate with other cultures, a loving husband, and an adorable three-year-old daughter. Then one day her dream life fell apart when her husband, bored with the safe domestic routine, abandoned her and their daughter to go in search of adventure. With no support of any kind from her husband, Seth, Jill had to forge ahead and create a new life for her and her daughter. The daughter, Anastasia, becomes the hub around which Jill's world revolves. Every decision Jill makes is based on her desire to do the best for her daughter.

Jill is a very believable character one can identify with. She's a strong woman who refuses to let misfortune get her down, even if only because she knows Anastasia has no one but her to depend upon. She takes a job answering telephones for a travel agency called Great Girlfriends Getaways, a little ironic because she hasn't got time for girlfriends. The only "girlfriend" time she allows herself is that spent with the owner of the travel agency, Joni, and her next-door neighbor, Cynthia. Jill fills her time taking care of Anastasia and making ends meet. She is admirably innovative turning her interest in other cultures into a series of Lunch Around The World cooking classes she teaches at the community center, and some business consulting services. This is a woman who learned how to survive but she's just surviving, not living. There is no money to buy herself any of the cute outfits her neighbor wears, and no time to hang out with girlfriends or to date. Still, seven years after her husband's departure, Jill looks around at the modest home she managed to purchase and her darling daughter and makes peace with what is. Her life isn't what she planned but she can feel good that she has found her own way.

Then one day, at the community center, Jill looks up and finds Seth standing there and all the conflicting feelings towards him surface. Seth offers a pathetic excuse for his disappearance and announces he wants to come back into their lives; he wants to see their daughter. Jill is torn between wanting to tell him to disappear again for good and giving her daughter a chance to know her father. Finally, she does what she's been doing these past seven years, she puts Anastasia's needs first. Once Seth is reunited with his daughter, Jill knows he will be a part of their lives from then on in one way or another.

The question for Jill then becomes can she revert to being the woman she was before Seth left? Can she continue being who she became afterwards? or does she need to once again revise her life. Through her business consulting, Jill had just met an intriguing man named Billy Sanders who crafts designer bicycles and wants to develop a Japanese market for them. For the first time in seven years, she is tempted by the promise of more than a fleeting relationship. Billy, like Seth, isn't what you would call "main stream," but unlike Seth, he isn't self-centered. Billy is warm, level-headed, caring. Jill is amazed as he discusses the relationship he has with his ex-wife, her new husband, and her sons. And she is touched that he understands she needs to take things slowly.

Cook's depiction of Jill's struggle to move on and work towards the life she really wants is believable and touching. Revision is never an easy chore but can be a valuable experience. I enjoyed the way Cook worked in a metaphor about surfing and life as Jill and Billy look towards their future. Surfing, she says, like life is "fun, but also a lot harder than it looks. . . . the trick is to use the calm between the waves to position yourself for the next one" (NY:Voice; 2010; 233). And to help readers make the most of that calm, Cook concludes her novel with a page entitled "PASSPORT To Your Next Chapter" where she shares seven tips for your own revision. You might not find any of these new or surprising but it's good to be reminded of each.

Cook crafts a fine novel filled with sympathetic, believable characters, and has a wonderful comedic touch as well. There is an episode near the end of the novel where Jill borrows one of Cynthia's Spanx products that is not to be missed. I laughed until I cried.

Thank you, Claire Cook, for a fun read, for an insight into one (fictional but so real) woman's revision, and for reminding us of the value of friendship.

You can buy Seven Year Switch here:
http://www.amazon.com/Seven-Year-Switch-Claire-Cook/dp/1401341160/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1280288510&sr=1-1

A Glimpse At The Next Pandemic? A review of Carla Buckley's The Things That Keep Us Here

The world as we know it, devastated by an influenza virus carried by birds? Don't say it can't happen. It can; it has. No, let me correct that. There has been no bird flu pandemic of yet, but there have been outbreaks of bird flu that caused deaths and left lingering disability in victims. It might have been about seven years ago, here in the Tidewater region of Virginia where I live, that there were reported cases of avian borne influenza that hospitalized a number of people. Some died; some remained in hospital for a long time then had to go through physical therapy to regain strength. I know because one such gentleman was in an aqua therapy class with me. He had been in the hospital almost a year!

Carla Buckley takes the notion that an avian borne influenza might be the next pandemic and explores how we would handle it in her debut novel, The Things That Keep Us Here. Buckley takes us inside the life of one family in middle America, the family of veterinary medicine researcher, Peter Brooks, his wife, Ann, and their two young daughters and lets us observe what happens when they are faced with the pandemic.

In a sense, the Brooks family is luckier than most. Peter Brooks is one of the first to be aware of the threat of the flu and is able to advise his estranged wife of precautions to take to help her and their children avoid exposure. However, things move faster than anyone anticipates and the Brooks family is just one more competing for increasingly scare resources like food, water and medicine.

To complicate matters, there is a mysterious tragedy in the past that has caused Peter and Ann to grow apart so that when conditions force Peter and his beautiful research assistant to seek shelter in the Brooks home, there is added tension. Crowd three tense adults and two bored and restless children into one house to isolate them from the risk of infection, and it's amazing that life continues as smoothly as it does.

Buckley does a great job of realistically describing the mad scramble for scarce resources, the sort of precautionary tactics that might be used to keep the risk of infection down and the make-do attitude families would need to adopt under such conditions. Once the realism of such details is firmly in place and the reader is fixed in a world where the electricity might never again come on, and a meal might be mustard on crackers, she hits hard asking what we would do to protect our family. Would we forsake a dear friend, a neighbor, because we are afraid that helping them might open the door to the risk of infection? Would we remain isolated or reach out and band together? Hard questions. Would we give up all notions of civility for reasons of safety and expediency?

It's a bleak scene that Buckley paints, to be sure. As a reader, I felt it keenly. What I had trouble with, or was unhappy with, was the ending. After the slow and steady buildup of the world of the pandemic, the post pandemic world seems to come rushing at us. Poof! It feels like a chunk of the novel is missing. The transition following a death in the family and the remainder of the family's retreat to a rural location lacks something. Suddenly, it seems, the remaining members of the Brooks family are again gathered at their old home but years have passed. Ann's earlier worries about the effects of the pandemic on her daughters' development are inadequately touched on. The old tragedy in the family has been revealed in an unsatisfactory way.

And what are the things that keep us/them here? Does Buckley refer to that which will allow us to survive in such situations? Or does this refer to Ann's return to the old house, the old neighborhood which has seen so much devastation? What would make her want to return? Loyalty to the family member who did not survive? A testimony to family, friends, and neighbors who died in the pandemic that life goes on? Decide for yourself when you read The Things That Keep Us Here by Carla Buckley.

Finding Purpose Beyond Our Pain: a review

Finding Purpose Beyond Our Pain by Paul Meier and David L. Henderson
http://www.thomasnelson.com/consumer/product_detail.asp?sku=0785229221&title=Finding_Purpose_Beyond_Our_Pain

Doctors Meier and Henderson,two Christian therapists thoroughly integrate Biblical scripture into their guidelines for coping with seven common sources of pain. Meier and Henderson take as their premise that God has a message or lesson for us on the other side of painful experiences. They discuss the seven common sources of pain in separate chapters, using Biblical scripture to illustrate the lesson to be learned. Further, they identify three reasons they believe we have difficulty coping with pain and receiving the lesson.

Each chapter ends with a nice summation and practical application tips. Wrapping up their discussion, the authors offer a fitness inventory giving the reader the opportunity to evaluate their spiritual fitness or readiness for coping with the next painful experience that comes their way. In painful times, we all forget what we know, that God is always with us and wants only what is best for us. Having a book such as this on hand at such times can serve to quick remind us of His love and put at our fingertips a means of coping with and understanding our pain

Review: Corrigan's Pool by Dot Ryan

The synopsis on the back of Corrigan's Pool is brilliantly written and hooked me right away. Could the novel live up to its promise, I wondered? I had to find out. I'm a native Virginian, also known as a Southerner, and have a natural interest in tales of the Old South. This historical novel, set in Savannah, Georgia during the years 1861 - 1864 promised to be as vivid and entertaining as Gone With The Wind. Who could resist?

Some might say that it's too familiar, stories of the Old South filled with beautiful plantations, idle rich supported by slaves, fancy dresses, and summer romances. What could give such stories new life? What I immediately noticed was the way the story flowed smoothly, the attention to telling details in both scenery and characterization. Mrs. Ryan drew me into her fictional world quickly, effortlessly, and I had difficulty putting the book down.

The story centers around Ella Corrigan, the eldest daughter of a plantation owner who is overwhelmed with guilt over an accident he believes he caused to his wife. Driven to drink as his wife lies in bed with brain damage, Adam Corrigan leaves Ella to run the plantation and care for her younger sister, Honor. Granted, Ella has help in the form of loyal family slaves but it's a lot of responsibility for a young woman. For the most part, Ella is resigned to her lot, has put aside the usual preoccupations with love and marriage and has shouldered her responsibilities with grace. Ryan creates a fine portrait of her as a young woman who has moved beyond the frivolous life so many of her cohorts are leading. She's strong, brave, kind, and has a mind of her own. As family matters continue to deteriorate and war is immanent, Ella's father suggests she marry Victor Faircloth, an older man, a neighbor who has been trying to win her hand for some time. Mr. Corrigan is hoping that marriage to Faircloth will insure his daughter is taken care of and the plantation retained. Even though Ella does not expect to fall in love and marry, she is adamant that she will not marry for convenience. Besides, she finds something chilling about Faircloth.

Someone should have warned Ella never to say never. Unexpectedly, she has a chance meeting, at the beautiful pond on her property, with a rough looking frontiersman, Gentry Garland. Garland seems the antithesis of everything Ella would want in a man, so she is ashamed by her instant attraction to him and covers it with a strong dislike for him. The handling of the developing relationship between Garland and Ella is well done. When Garland abruptly disappears after pledging his love for Ella, the reader's heart is sure to break with hers.

Ella is not a stagnant character and the loss of her lover compounded by other family issues and war negatively affect her. The beautiful twist is that out of her own pain, Ella, marrying Faircloth in desperation, becomes more observant of pain in the lives of others. In particular, living on Faircloth's plantation, Ella learns why his slaves keep disappearing and how this is connected to the beautiful pond on her own plantation. Much as she regrets the loss of the beautiful life in Savannah pre war, Ella learns to question the foundation of that life. Ella's heartbreak has as reward a growth of her character and a willingness to risk her own safety to help others.

Carefully woven together, in Corrigan's Pool, the reader will find the romance of Ella and Gentry Garland, a tale of Georgians dealing with war on their doorsteps, a mystery involving the beautiful Corrigan's Pond, tales of human vice and treachery, and issues of human slavery. Ryan's attention to historical detail, lyrical flow of words, and understanding of matters of the human heart make this a must read. I've bookmarked her blog: http://www.dotryanbooks.com/ and look forward to her sequel.

New Moon

I've been reading a lot lately so sharing more reviews with you. I know I'm going to get blasted for my opinion of New Moon by Stephenie Meyer, but I just have to be honest.

When I first heard of Stephanie Meyers' Twilightt series, I wasn't much interested. Teen vampire love story. Uh huh. But everyone talked about it so much that when a copy of Twilight turned up on a shelf at my local thrift store, I thought, "Why not?" What was I losing for $0.45? Interview With A Vampire by Anne Rice spoiled me. What a rich re-visioning of the vampire myth! So well told, beautifully written. And Louis! Ah who can forget Louis? Even Rice's later vampire novels could not compete with the place Interview has in my affections, although I found LeStat entertaining enough. How would Twilight compare?

Teen girl, something of misfit, falls in love with mysterious boy who just happens to be a vampire. As I read, I kept wondering why so many people were raving about the character, Bella. I didn't find her at all appealing. In part that could be due to her low self-confidence and habit of always putting herself down. But for me, the bigger issue was that she didn't seem to be about anything. I couldn't have told you what her values were or what she wanted out of life except for her obvious desire to be liked by the mysterious Edward whose handsome appearance is always foremost in her mind and her descriptions of him. The characters had the potential to be interesting but just weren't developed well enough for me to care about them. And Twilight was less a vampire story than a twist on Romeo and Juliet. As far as action and plot development, let's just say it was like watching a film in slow motion.

Now why, since I obviously wasn't impressed with Twilight, would I pick up the second installment, New Moon? I had no plans of buying it. Then I had a doctor's appointment scheduled and went searching for something to take along to read. Turned out I'd actually managed to get to the bottom of all the various waiting-to-be-read stacks around the house. I found one book I hadn't read but it was non-fiction of the sort requiring concentration; definitely not brain candy and I find brain candy is best for waiting rooms. Since I had to stop at the pharmacy on my way to the doctor, I checked the books on the their shelves. Nothing appealed to me and I was going to walk out but the thought of sitting in that waiting room for what might be a long while caused me to take a last look. I saw New Moon and snatched it up with a sigh. At least it wasn't heavy reading.

I don't know whether I was simply used to Bella or whether she was actually less annoying the second time around but I disliked her less. Except - and this is a big one for me - the girl was beyond hopelessly in love with Edward. Bella had lost all sense of herself as a person without Edward's presence. I hate that the young girls for whom this series is a favorite are reading this love story and perhaps learning how to obliterate themselves, how to vanish into the shadow of some male they choose as all important. Over and over again Bella and, yes, Edward, too was ready to give up everything if s/he couldn't be with the other. Is this really what we want our daughters to be learning? I think of friends who entered relationships that faltered and fell apart. What happens afterward? Those with a healthy sense of self pull their lives back together and go on, often to better things. Those who negated much of their self to mollify their partner usually fall apart when the one they thought of as "everything" no longer has use for them. The one left behind often is in a position of having, in essence, to establish a new self image.

Aside from the unhealthy lesson I see there, what else can I say about New Moon? Although the characters don't develop much more I did feel there was some improvement. There was more of a sense of the Cullens being a family with believable family loyalties based on interest in and concern for one another rather than just a connection as vampires. I liked the way Meyers wove in the legend of the werewolves. However, I found myslef laughing out loud as I envisioned the "exploding" that took place as the Indians lads transformed to werewolves. This made me picture the old Incredible Hulk cartoons. The Volturi were an interesting touch - the veneer of civility over the horror one expects in a vampire story; now there was a vampire story to be told there. And there was, relatively speaking, more action than in Twilight.

All in all, perhaps satisfying brain candy for the pre-teen, teen set. However, my nieces won't be receiving copies from me.

Cross about Cross Country

I waited impatiently for Cross Country to go paperback or for a hardcover edition to turn up at my local thrift store. No offence intended, Mr. Patterson, it's just that I'm retired on disability and have a limited income. Finally I saw the paperback at Costco and snagged it as a treat to myself.

Patterson's Alex Cross mysteries are among my favorite popular novels and if things were different I'd have a complete hardcover collection of them to read again and again. I've found an Alex Cross novel to be the ultimate brain candy, a guaranteed good read.

Like all Patterson novels, the Cross series novels are action packed page turners. But it's really the character Patterson has created in Alex Cross that causes me to wait impatiently for the next novel. Cross is a man I'd like to meet and be friends with . Trained as a clinical psychologist, Cross is intelligent, analytical, and gifted in terms of understanding the abnormal behavior of criminals. But more than that, he is warm, a loyal friend, a devoted family man of solid values, but no saint. I enjoy the interaction of Cross with his friends and family, especially Nana Mama who reminds me of my paternal grandmother.

So I was disappointed to discover several elements of Cross Country that made it a poor read. First, Cross has always done his best to guard his family against the dangerous types he comes across in his work. In Cross Country, Alex Cross has an agenda that bumps "family first" off the top of his priorities list. A murder occurs in D.C. and Cross decides to track the killers) back to Africa. A most improbable scenario to begin with. He ignores his family's pleas and disregards their safety as he takes off in pursuit of the killer. Soon the reader is adrift in the nightmare Cross walks into when he arrives in Africa.

Not only have we lost the Alex Cross we thought we knew, but we're plunged into the atrocities Cross finds everywhere he turns. The novel becomes seriously depressing and gruesome as Patterson recreates brutal crimes that have become a part of daily life in numerous areas in Africa. While I'd be the first to agree that novels can inform and educate, can help us understand and develop empathy for others, I've got to say that if that was Patterson's goal here, I think he failed to achieve it. Most readers who pick up Cross Country are looking for a typical Cross novel in the sense of the protagonist being the Cross we've come to know and love. I doubt anyone picked it up for a political lesson. I've heard from a number of Cross fans they they just couldn't finish the book; they found it too disappointing in terms of their expectations and too gruesome. I read through to the end, determined to get my $7.00 worth. While I was sick reading about the horrific crimes in Africa, this novel did not educate me further and did little to gain my empathy for the victims. Rather the bloodbath was just "action" around Cross. If Patterson is interested in gaining sympathy for the victims of such crimes and support for changes then he'd be better off interviewing some victims and telling their story, first making the readers care about the victims as people.

Cross in Cross Country wasn't as intelligent, as analytical, as clever, as caring as the character I longed to read about. I missed the easy banter with the wise and opinionated Nana Mama. And I thought Alex Cross and his girlfriend Bree lost a little of their appeal as they acted more like teenagers on a hormone high. How about giving Alex Cross a good whack up side the head and a good talking to with his therapist to help him get himself back together?

There's a new Alex Cross novel out on he shelves and it's calling my name but now I'm hesitant to heed it's call. I might just wait for that one to turn up in the thrift store rather than waste my money on another disappointment.