Sur le pont du loup (2004)

A decent read about Alex Cross as he travels the world looking for the Wolf.. some excitement especially in the beginning, but nothing over the top for the rest of the book.. part of a series, so without reading the previous books, feel like you are missing something.. ( )

It was very face paced and interesting. It was the most international of the books so far spanning The UK, France, Switzerland, etc. Also the combined resources of the FBI, CIA, Homeland security, Interpol, Scotland Yard, etc. Very interesting interaction, the Dragon Slayers reputation grows by leaps and bounds! ( )

The finish of this book is very poor ( )

Well that escalated quickly; last book the Wolf was kidnapping women and selling them to perverts, this book he's holding America, France, England & Israel to ransom for 4 billion dollars with nuclear weapons. I can't quite put my finger on it, but there's something about the plot that seems a little out of proportion to the former book.

That aside, the story whilst clearly absurd, was actually quite entertaining and structured in a manner that did have you guessing at what was going on and who was a good guy versus bad guy. The custody sub plot with Christine still lingers advancing slowly, Alex's love life continues in its car crash like manner with him seeming to flirt with purpose with his nan's doctor whilst still seeing Jam, but making no moves to reconcile the long distance relationship into something workable.

It's decent, more so than the last one and does tie up the Weasel & Wolf storylines, I also note Patterson can't work out how to describe Alex's porsche, in the earlier books when it was 8-14 years old it was described as his 'old black porsche' last book when it was presumably 15 years old it became his 'ancient porsche' now it's back to just being an old porsche. Maybe he washed it? ( )

Not a complete waste of time, since there were some mentions of poverty in SE DC, and a sense of moral compass. Nevertheless, this thriller was worth reading mostly for the practice of French, and to see how the author uses 1st person for his hero, Alex Cross, with shifting 3rd for other MCs. Reasonably predictable plot, despite the twists at the end.

Universal Date: 19 September, 12014 H.E. (Holocene/Human Era) ( )