Alex Cross's beloved DC is in turmoil as Saudi terrorists unleash deadly attacks upon the city at a time when all the alphabet agencies are already scrambling about trying to locate the two kidnapped children of the President of the United States. Is there a connection? The misleading title, a two-pronged storyline that proceeds at two different paces and with varying degrees of suspense, the overall similarity (at least of the kidnap scenario) to a previous (and stellar) Alex Cross novel (Along Came a Spider) and various questions unasked and/or unanswered make for an embarrassingly tepid reading in James Patterson's latest Kill Alex Cross (Little Brown & Co, 384p, Isbn-0316198730). There's no mistaking that the quality of Patterson’s writing continues to shrink along with the length of his chapters. The terrorist plot is the one spot of (mild) interest in an otherwise cliched story. The planning and dedication that goes hand in hand with fanaticism, the splinter cell...
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