MIRACLE on the 17th GREEN by James Patterson and Peter de Jonge

 

Originally published in 1996 by Little, Brown and Company.

The high school I teach at is in the midst of library book purge. I have no idea why Miracle on the 17th Green was ever in a high school library because it is aimed at adults. I don't mean that it has "adult themes" like a movie might label them (drugs, sex, violence, etc.), I mean that it has adult themes like questioning whether you have made the right choices in life, which comes first - family or career? Is it okay to put your family at risk just to achieve your personal goals, especially when they are a long shot?

I really enjoyed this book despite never having played even one hole of real golf (I have played plenty of putt-putt golf, but that doesn't really apply, does it?). It didn't really matter - the story was compelling and I faked my way through the golf stuff.

James Patterson has a long history of co-writing books. I always figure he's lending his name to up and coming authors in exchange for a little bit of co-writing, a lot of advising and a paycheck. This book was his first co-writing venture and Patterson and de Jonge have co-written 5 books in total.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: MIRACLE on the 17th GREEN  by James Patterson and Peter de Jonge.

Note: there are 2 sequels that were added to this book to make a trilogy in 2105 and 2019. I am not going to read them because this book ended at a good place.

The Lake House (audiobook) by James Patterson

Yikes!

Published in 2003 by Hatchette Audio
Read by Hope Davis and Stephen Lang.
Duration: 7 hours, 35 minutes.

Unabridged

The Lake House is the story of six bird/human hybrids who are created as the result of genetic experiments. They all can fly and all have superhuman strength.

 This book is very poorly paced. Great chunks of action happen with shorthand writing and then Patterson spends nearly an hour of the 7 1/2 hour book describing two of the characters' first sexual experiences. The Lake House skips over scenes and parts of the story moves in fits and starts. For example, the children all "run" away to live in the woods and eat grubs just to get away from regular human society. Next thing you know, they're back at home without any sort of explanation. I listen to a lot of audiobooks and many of them are abridged so I am used to odd fits and starts by poor editing. I checked the packaging several times while listening to this book to see if it was abridged. Sadly, the herky-jerky nature of the book cannot be blamed on poor editing during the process of abridgement because this is an unabridged reading.

Technical things made the book just seem silly like:

-The smoke detector that goes off only after the house is up in flames struck me as stupid. Just this morning 2 smoke detectors went off in my house because a toaster waffle got a bit burned.

-How about the Subaru that holds 8 people, including 6 of them with wings?

-Why does the bad guy want the kids so badly. He keeps mentioning them as a source of money, but how much money does this guy need? He just performed 30 surgeries at the rate of $100 million each. That's $3 billion!

-If you were going to fight a winged person with a 10 foot wingspan and superhuman strength would you bring a gun? A big knife? A spear? A rocket launcher? Well, the genius supervillain brings a scalpel!

-How about the bemoaning of the fact that no one was talking about the Resurrection Project in the media but then it is brought out in testimony during the custody trial of the century and no one questions it because they knew all about it?

-Can you measure IQ when someone is asleep? No, but the evil genius does anyway.

-Hey - if you are going to write sci-fi get your terms right! Clones are not robots. Robots are not made of flesh. Cyborg is the term you were looking for. Get the terminology right or don't use it, please!

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. This book is bad, especially when compared to other works by Patterson, such as any of the early Alex Cross books. Patterson needs to have an editor really jump all over him and demand the better quality that he is capable of.

The audiobook was read by Hope Davis and Stephen Lang. Both are veteran readers who did a good job with the reading. But, even the best readers in the world could not have done anything to save this stinker of a book.

Note: This book and When the Wind Blows were re-worked to make the basis for Patterson's Maximum Ride series aimed at young adults.

I rate this book 1 star out of 5. It can be purchased at Amazon.com here: The Lake House by James Patterson.

Reviewed on March 2, 2007 (edited on June 26, 2012).

Four Blind Mice (Alex Cross #8) (audiobook) by James Patterson

Good but not great

Published by Hachette Audio in 2002.

Read by Peter Jay Fernandez and Michael Emerson.

Duration:  8 hours and 7 minutes.

Unabridged

I am glad to get back to the world of Alex Cross. I have read or heard 3 other Patterson books this year and have been sorely disappointed with two. I only liked one (Jester) and I was looking forward to getting back to comfortable ground with Alex Cross.

After reading a few reviews, it sounds like the audio version actually helps Four Blind Mice a bit. The two narrators are both quite good, with the exception that some of the bad guys sound too much like one another.

The strength of Patterson's Cross books is the realistic conversations - the rhythms, cadences, colloquialisms and vocabulary sound right and this was certainly accentuated by great audio performances by Peter Jay Fernandez and Michael Emerson.

Their voces sound so right that I am reminded of a personal story. Way back before Patterson's picture was plastered all over the back of every one of his books, I used to work in a used book store. The Alex Cross books started filtering in and Mrs. Rivers, the assistant manager and an elderly African-American woman (also an avid mystery/thriller reader) placed Patterson's books in the African-American authors section because the characters felt so right to her. She was shocked when a book came in with his face on the back. She commented that she never would have believed that a white man could have pulled that off so well. He still pulls it off.

However, the story flows in a herky-jerky manner. Sampson and Cross gleen clues from things that should not provide clues. For example, while in Raleigh, NC investigating an old ritualistic multiple murder, they hear that a single prostitute was killed. No details are provided of the prostitute's murder, but still they know it is connected. How?

Patterson is intent on moving the personal lives of Cross and Sampson forward. That is appropriate. At times, though, it felt as if that was the only part of the story he really put a lot of thought into. The rest seemed to be rather sloppily tossed in there - the connections were loose, characters are introduced than dropped.

So, my grade: 4 stars out of 5.

Good conversation. Like the characters. My suggestion: Slow down "James Patterson, Inc." and take the time to work out some of the kinks and make these books better.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: Four Blind Mice by James Patterson.

Reviewed on May 3, 2007.

London Bridges (Alex Cross #10) (audiobook) by James Patterson

Published by Hatchette Audio in 2004
Read by Peter J. Fernandez and Denis O'Hare
Duration: 8 hours, 19 minutes

Unabridged

The real problem with James Patterson's works right now is that he has become a corporate thing - James Patterson, Inc. James Patterson, Inc. produces a large amount of books, movies, and even TV shows, but like nationwide fast food chains that produce large amounts of food in a short amount of time, Patterson's prodigious output suffers from a serious lack of quality.

The last 3 Patterson books I've reviewed have all had gaping holes in the plot. Does he even have his work edited any longer, or do they just print them up as soon as the rough draft comes in?

London Bridges features Alex Cross, Patterson's most enduring character and the star of much better books like Kiss the Girls. In this one, Alex is confronted by two of his arch-villain foes at the same time - the Weasel and the Wolf.

Unfortunately, Alex is cheapened by being in this book. The bad guys are so extreme as to make James Bond bad guys look reasonable. People are blown up and shot in the foreheads left and right and no one ever catches these people on a video camera?

Patterson stretches the book with lots of filler such as detailing Alex's musical choices, adding product placemements (Virgin records, etc.) and an extended sexual foreplay scene that did nothing to advance the plot but lots to titilate.

Most annoying are details that should have been included, such as why does the Wolf want the Weasel working on his conspiracy? Why do their choices of weapons of mass-destruction change? Why do their target cities change? Why were Arabs and Mafia-types and Russian ex-KGB guys brought in and tossed back out of the story? Why can't Alex find out about exposure to radiation when he is exposed to a nuclear weapon? You'd think they'd debrief a fellow about that.

Alex confronts a bad guy and kills him - a climactic scene in the middle of the book. No mention is made of the injuries Alex sustained and he is never de-briefed about the situation. It is never mentioned again. Why not? Maybe there was not enough space since I got to hear more about Alex's musical choices, angst about being separated from family (they are in and out of the story at odd moments, especially since they are apparently evacuated since Washington,D.C. is threatened by the super-villains). Alex's grandmother's health issues are hinted in yet another book and the reader is constantly threatened with her impending doom, a cheap stunt to gather interest in an underdeveloped story. Oh, what a story this could have been if Patterson had really developed it and turned it into a two or three volume series!

The audio version is narrated by Peter Fernandez and Dennis O'Hare. One of them reads the chapters that are 1st person in the form of Alex Cross. The other reads the sections that are 3rd person and feature the Wolf and the Weasel. Both are strong readers and cover it quite well  - the material is just not equal to their ability.

I rate this book 2 stars out of 5 and it can be found on Amazon.com here: London Bridges by James Patterson.

Reviewed on December 8, 2007.

Violets Are Blue (audiobook) by James Patterson

Sigh...

Published in 2005 by Hachette Audio.

Read by Daniel Whitner and Kevin O'Rourke
Duration: 8 hours, 10 minutes

Unabridged.

I used to think the Alex Cross series had a lot going for it. I used to be very impressed with it when I first discovered it about 10 years ago. I don't know if my tastes have improved or if the series has declined but this is definitely not as good as I remember them being (and frankly, I'm scared about going back and re-reading one of them and ruining my only strong memories of the series).

There are two concurrent plots in Violets are Blue. One involves an investigation into the "Goth" underworld and vampires (are they real or are they just people who are REALLY into vampires and like to act like they are real vampires..?)

The other story involves the recurring criminal mastermind character conveniently named "the Mastermind". I hate to write spoilers so I won't re-hash the entire plot here, but let me say that Patterson probably owes Michael Connelly an apology. Michael Connelly basically wrote the same thing several years earlier in the thriller The Poet (and he did it better, too!)

I keep thinking I'm going to really like a Patterson book again, but this is about the 5th in a row that I have not liked. I'm tired of searching for the needle in the proverbial Patterson haystack. The stories just lack the depth and the realism that they used to have.

The audiobook version is read by two narrators - Daniel Whitner and Kevin O'Rourke. One reads the part of Alex Cross, one covers nearly everything else. It lasts a little more than 8 hours.

I rate this audiobook 2 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: Violets Are Blue (Alex Cross Novels)

Reviewed on April 13, 2008.

The Jester by James Patterson and Andrew Gross

Patterson switches up big time

Published in 2003.

Known for his murder mysteries, James Patterson and co-author Andrew Gross decided to try something new and have given us The Jester, a fun, fast-paced adventure set in war-torn medieval Europe.

Hugh De Luc is a happily married innkeeper until he heads off to fight in the Crusades. The gruesome fighting and wanton disregard for life change and sicken him so he deserts and heads home only to find his wife taken captive and his infant son dead.

At this point, Patterson is on more familiar ground. Hugh De Luc must find out who did it and try to bring him to justice. Unfortunately, medieval customs and laws interfere with that search. Throw in some religious relics and a menacing group of French knights who believe they are condemned to hell and you have the indgredients for a fine book.

Patterson's descriptions of medieval life ring true, although the ending may not have worked out so well in a real medieval scenario. Nevertheless, it was lots of fun and a big improvement over the Women's Murder Club series.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Jester.

Reviewed on July 16, 2006.