Along Came a Spider by James Patterson

source: purchased
title: Along Came A Spider
author: James Patterson (Twitter)
pages: 449
genre: crime thriller/detective fiction
published: December 1, 1993
first line: The Charles Lindbergh farmhouse glowed with bright, orangish lights.
rated: 5 out of 5 stars!

blurb:
Discover the classic thriller that launched the #1 detective series of the past twenty-five years, now one of PBS’s “100 Great American Reads”

Alex Cross is a homicide detective with a Ph.D. in psychology. He works and lives in the ghettos of D. C. and looks like Muhammad Ali in his prime. He’s a tough guy from a tough part of town who wears Harris Tweed jackets and likes to relax by banging out Gershwin tunes on his baby grand piano. But he also has two adorable kids of his own, and they are his own special vulnerabilities.

Jezzie Flanagan is the first woman ever to hold the highly sensitive job as supervisor of the Secret Service in Washington. Blond, mysterious, seductive, she’s got an outer shell that’s as tough as it is beautiful. She rides her black BMW motorcycle at speeds of no less than 100 mph. What is she running from? What is her secret?

Alex Cross and Jezzie Flanagan are about to have a forbidden love affair-at the worst possible time for both of them. Because Gary Soneji, who wants to commit the “crime of the century,” is playing at the top of his game. Soneji has outsmarted the FBI, the Secret Service, and the police. Who will be his next victim?

Gary Soneji is every parent’s worst nightmare. He has become Alex Cross’s nightmare. And now, reader, he’s about to become yours.

my thoughts:

Hellooooooo everyone. I am still here. I have to begin this post by saying that I miss you guys and I miss blog-land but I am still on major vacation/summertime mode. I am going to try to catch up online this weekend and hopefully by next weekend I will have an updates and mailbox post.

Anyway, onto my thoughts on Along Came A Spider by James Patterson a.k.a. my favorite book of 2018 so far. This book was fantastic and once I was finished reading I had a serious book hangover.

The New York Daily News says:
“James Patterson is to suspense what Danielle Steel is to romance”.

What took me so long to read James Patterson?! I do not know. This is the book that kicks off the Alex Cross series and I’ve had this one on my wish list for a long time.

In Along Came A Spider, Alex Cross is a Washington, D.C. homicide investigator and forensic psychologist who is placed on a case where a family of three is found brutally murdered and mutilated in the ghetto. Shortly after, at a prestigious grade school a teacher named Gary Soneji kidnaps two children. Maggie Rose Dunne is the daughter of a famous actress and Michael Goldberg is the son of wealthy parents. Cross is pulled off the murder case to work on the high-profile kidnapping. This upsets him because he knows it’s unfair that the murder of the black family from a low-income neighborhood is swept under the rug while the kidnapping of the rich white children is on the front news.

Cross starts to work on the kidnapping case with FBI agent Jezzie Flannagan. The two hit it off right away as the hunt for the kidnapper continues. Not too long after, they find out the kidnapping and the murder case are connected. What ensues is a cat and mouse chase as the cops race against time to hopefully find and save the kidnapped children. The story is told through alternating POV’s from the main characters including the kidnapper.

“I knew both of them were psychopaths. This country is turning out more and more of them than any other place on the planet. They come in all shapes and sizes, all races and creeds and genders. That’s the scariest thing of all.”
p.449, Along Came a Spider by James Patterson

I enjoyed this thrill ride all the way. I liked the writing, it has heart and I would find passages that were scary yet others that were sweet. It was perfectly balanced.

“All I knew right then was that I was falling deeper and deeper in love. That much I was sure about. The rest of my life was mystery and chaos, but at least there was a lifeline.”
-p314, Along Came a Spider 

“It’s all right to put the weight of the world on your shoulders sometimes, if you know how to take it off.”
p. 220, Along Came a Spider 

James Patterson pulls you right along through the story, he creates a diverse cast of characters and a thrilling chase for the killer with a plot full of twists and turns that I didn’t see coming. The storytelling was great and the characterization was on point. There’s a detective you root for right off the bat, a creepy serial killer, a love interest and courtroom drama all wrapped up in one. Plus the vintage 1990’s feel to the story is the icing on the cake. I also found it brilliant how the author weaves in issues of class status, sexism in the workplace and race into the plot.

The only way to cure by book hangover was to start reading the next book in the series, Kiss the Girls. I’m enjoying this one already. Have you seen the film version? It’s a good one.

And as if finding a new favorite author and series wasn’t good enough, guess who re-tweeted my tweet about his book? Yes, James Patterson .

I tweeted how much I loved this book and he re-tweeted me.

So, have you read this one or this author? Enjoy your week 🙂

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About the author:

James Patterson is the world’s bestselling author, best known for his many enduring fictional characters and series, including Alex Cross, the Women’s Murder Club, Michael Bennett, Maximum Ride, Middle School, I Funny, and Jacky Ha-Ha. Patterson’s writing career is characterized by a single mission: to prove to everyone, from children to adults, that there is no such thing as a person who “doesn’t like to read,” only people who haven’t found the right book. He’s given over a million books to schoolkids and over forty million dollars to support education, and endowed over five thousand college scholarships for teachers.  He writes full-time and lives in Florida with his family. Learn more at jamespatterson.com. -quoted from Amazon.com

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disclaimer: This review is my honest opinion. I did not receive any kind of compensation for reading and reviewing this book. I am under no obligation to write a positive review. I purchased my copy of Along Came A Spider by  James Patterson.

Some of the links in the post are affiliate links. If you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive a small affiliate commission. The pictures in this post are my own and not to be removed.