Deadly cross by James Patterson book review

I try to read one book per month minimum. Most of 2022 was spent on Alex cross series by James Patterson as I wanted to finish the series. Having completed about a dozen or so of that 2 dozen and odd series, had hardly posted a review for the reason, none of them were that impressive. James Patterson thrives on psycho villains and serial killers who are very meticulous and almost always have Alex cross as the one who crosses their path. In fact, till the last reveal, it would be very difficult to guess the “whodunnit”. But rather than that being the plus the reveal often make you realize, just for the sake of a grand twist, such characterizations serve no purpose. The fellow person who would’ve travelled throughout the story as a close associate of Cross would often be the serial psycho killer. It became a standard template across all those stories and had given up reading that series altogether. This one was long pending on the list of unread and had started reading just to close the loop on the list. But interestingly or because of the long break in following the series, this one turned out much better. There is a definite and clear storyline with decent investigation, natural twists and even though the ending is still muddled, it is much better than the previous books in the series. Deadly cross deals with the murder of the ex-wife of the US Vice president, found murdered along with her male friend. What starts as a double murder case, goes back in time threatening the office of VP, possible character assassination of a local rich Samaritan, links with previous murder kidnap cases of girls from the same locality and it all eventually get resolved with the killer revealing himself having pushed into a corner. For those who start the series with this novel, they may not be majorly impressed to try the rest of the series.