Category: Books/Music/Movies

Title: London Bridges

Author: James Patterson

Genre: Thriller / Drama

Storyline: The 10th Alex Cross novel (although I’ve never read any of them until now) – A town in Nevada gets evacuated by the US Army… and then destroyed. A terrorist called “The Wolf” claims responsibility and the chase begins. New York, London and Paris all feel the brunt of the Wolfs schemes whilst Alex Cross tries to find out who he is and stop him before he kills more people and blows up more cities.

Review: WOW. What a page-turner. This book kept you guessing and right on the edge of your seat as Alex Cross travels across Europe and America to try and track down the Wolf and the Weasel. With plenty of action, and plenty of questions, throughout the book you are never left bored. In fact the main problem with this book is that you don’t want to sleep as you just want to read it!

Score: 4.7/5

Title: The Blue Zone

Author: Andrew Gross

Genre: Crime / Thriller

Storyline: A loving father and family man is suddenly arrested by the FBI with accusations of money laundering. He and his family are placed in the witness protection program after he agrees to turn on the group he had helped. All except his eldest daughter who has a life of her own and won’t give it up. Life then takes a turn as he disappears and their case agent is found tortured and killed…. suddenly the daughter is caught between multiple factions and not knowing where to go, who to trust and what will happen next.

Review: Andrew Gross has written 5 novels as co-author with James Patterson but the style of this one is unique to him – a nice thing to note as he’s not just a Patterson clone. The book has plenty of twists and turns in the plot and you are never sure who can be trusted – meaning you are along for the ride with Kate Raab (the daughter.) The story is well written and has plenty of excitement to keep going, but also enough character building to make you feel for the people involved. There’s also a nice dose of red herrings included to keep you wondering. All in all a very well written book and one that will no doubt be read again, with new things discovered with every read.

Score: 4.2/5

As promised in my earlier post – I thought I’d start posting reviews of books I read, films I see, albums I hear etc… so here’s the first one of several that I’ll post in the next few days.

Title: The Brethren

Author: John Grisham

Genre: Crime / Thriller

Storyline: Three judges locked away in prison run a blackmail scam targeting closet rich gay men through the private ads. Meanwhile, the head of the CIA is trying to get an unknown bloke elected as US President… except he then gets caught in the blackmail scam.

Review: Partly reminiscent of Richard North Patterson, but not as in-depth or focused, and partly your normal lawyer-type thriller. A good book and highly entertaining but the 440 pages should really have been 550 to allow the storyline to get a bit more depth. Despite that though, it was still a page-turner and a good solid read.

Score: 3.5/5