Target Alex cross by James Patterson

 Whenever you see some one saying, first halfu nalla irunthuchi second half was lagging or not upto expectations, outside a movie hall after watching a show, i used to wonder, had there been no interval, would they've still felt the same about the movie? Interval block nu onnu ilaati is it even possible to split the story into a good half or bad half? Possibly it can be categorized as good sections and bad. But this book by Patterson is definitely making a case for great first half and torrid second half!! May be the way he started the story at a break neck pace and the speed with which things unfolded, it was reminiscent of a Sehwag innings against Srilanka where he would've scored almost a double century over 100+ strike rate (obviously!!) in a single day only for the whole team score to still fall under 400!!!

I was reading the entire series of Alex cross novels (almost 30 plus and counting i guess) and gave it up half way after halfway through, for the pattern became too boring and predictable. The villain will kidnap, Alex cross's family, his kids, his wife -  he does like to get married and he has a couple of wives at the least, who end up getting killed, or kidnapped even when they are pregnant, or simply kidnapped, or they get cross over Cross and cross over to the other side in divorce! He/She villain will mostly be an ex-patient or current patient of Cross, whose psychiatric practice somehow always tend to attract the worst criminals who are fixated on him than regular patients. The villains in the series are mostly serial killers who are pakka neat in their "executions" only to get caught due to their fixation for Cross. He would deduce things as easy finding a hay colored needle in a hall full of haystacks and would always be right! Patterson has a fetish for serial killers i guess and seems to elaborate and detail out their kills and modus operandi, almost to the point of glorification. 

"Target Alex Cross" almost begins in the same format with the killing of an American Senator by a professional assassin. Before you could think idhennamo differenta irukkay, there is another killing by another assassin and a series of murders follows each by a different assassin with almost all of them happening at the same time across America. Right from the POTUS till the 6th in succession for that role if in case of any unfortunate situation, the entire political hierarchy of US is destroyed in matter of minutes. It is absolute chaos and the 7th in line decides to strike back and openly claims cyber attacks against possible political opponents from hostile nations. The "first half" of the story literally flies off in a vertical lift off and it hardly leaves any gasping space for the readers to even hazard a guess. Considering that the 7th in line had been quite inconsequential at the beginning and the speed with which he gets elevated to the top slot, makes him an obvious suspect. The second part of the story deals with how quickly each of the assassins gets killed, either by bad luck or chance or having not through their escape at all. The speed with which it all gets hastened to an end, makes one wonder if Patterson saw "Designated survivor" or inspired by the series or similar story line, to cook up the beginning of a plot but got messed up as to how to figure out end game for not one but half a dozen assassins. The main perpetrator and their reason for all this mayhem makes one wonder, idhukada ivlo akkapor!!! And again the ease with which the ending is rushed to leaves a bad taste. What could've been a great pulp fiction ends up as an half baked under prepared plot. And true to the original template, there is a parallel line involving a patient who seems to be included only to create a diversion, ends up getting killed by some villain, who seems to be in waiting for the template setting in the next book!!! Adutha postla will let you know how much of the template is retained in that story.