Along Came a Spider by James Patterson - Other - SFBookcase.com - Reference of Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels/Authors.

Series: Alex Cross
Volume: 1
Genre: Other
ISBN: 0446364193
Pages: 528 pages
Publisher: Warner Books
Price: $7.99
Reader Rating: 9 out of 10
Votes: 1

Along Came a Spider by James Patterson

Description: This second big winter thriller by a writer named Patterson (see Fiction Forecasts, Oct. 19) features a villain (a multiple-personality serial killer/kidnapper) whom the publisher hopes will remind readers of Thomas Harris's Hannibal Lecter, and a hero who is compared to those of Jonathan Kellerman. Unfortunately, the novel has few merits of its own to set against those authors' works. Hero Alex Cross is in fact a black senior detective in Washington, D.C., who is also a psychiatrist and has a facile but not entirely convincing line of sentimental-cynical patter. The villain is Gary Soneji/Murphy (read Hyde/Jekyll), who kills for recognition, and finally kidnaps the kids of prominent parents. Alex is soon on the case, more enraged by Gary's killing of poor ghetto blacks than by the Lindbergh-inspired kidnapping, and becomes involved with a gorgeous, motorcycle-riding Secret Service supervisor who is not what she seems. Soneji/Murphy is eventually captured-but can the bad part of him be proven guilty?