London Bridges by James Patterson

Any avid reader knows any time you truck into your local bookstore and spy that telltale mixture of explosions and nursery rhymes on a hardcover, Alex Cross is back. At this point, following two successful movies about the character starring Morgan Freeman, it could be a book about Cross’s weekend gardening tips and still sell a hundred thousand copies. Is James Patterson’s latest, “London Bridges” going to be an exception?

Following up a successful series in true Hollywood fashion, Patterson has chosen a much bigger scope for his character this time around. Now an FBI agent, Cross’ concerns are now the affairs of the whole country, particularly with the war on terror. So when he is called off vacation to investigate the reappearance of his arch enemy, the Weasel, it is not a simple case of murder that is under investigation, but the annihilation of an entire town.

The figure apparently behind these terrorist attacks is known only as the Wolf, for whom the FBI’s massive database holds no clues, and whose henchmen only seem to make a post mortem appearance in investigations. This time around, not only does Cross have to deal with the killers and his always-on-the-brink-of-collapse family life, but with the “process obsessed Federal Government and its completely bizarre way of doing things”.

Although the sheer scope of the novel, switching locations from the Nevada desert to Washington, Paris and London effortlessly, while part of its charm, is in some ways its downfall. Now that Cross is just one man in a chain, the drive behind the story is out of his hands, and placed into that of the FBI men in charge, and of course the Wolf himself. Large passages of the book simply concern Alex blindly traveling from location to location, wincing in anticipation of the next attack. Many of the clues and inroads he does find are by pure chance. This in some ways robs the books conclusion of its satisfaction, helped in no way by the numerous ‘false’ endings.

A big part of Patterson’s skill in thriller writing is keeping his subjects contemporary and believable, a skill that he applies both to his incidental detail and the personalities of his characters. Patterson even hints at current frustration with the US and British policies of “no negotiation” with terrorists, portraying both governments as insensitive even when thousands of lives are at stake. Patterson however spares no sensitivity when dealing with his lead character, who has grown into a far more weary, family centered man. Cross is no longer a lone pillar of strength, relying heavily on his grandmother and children for the motivation to press on. We can identify with his feelings of helplessness, of being under another’s control. It is this human centre that carries this often sprawling tale above its contemporaries.