CROSS—James Patterson—Alex Cross faces his wife’s murder, Michael Sullivan, a/k/a The Butcher. Patterson, it seems, has run out of story and instead of the complex things he wrote previously, is trying to find a way to be done with this cycle. The Library Journal remarked, among other things, “Patterson fans will find a lot that's recognizable here, as the story reads like everything he's done before. This series is becoming tired, and Patterson seems to be trying to compensate by making each villain successively more repulsive. The rushed and tacked-on ending will irritate readers instead of pleasing them. The best Patterson books, like Jack and Jill, are intricate and substantial, not just gore draped over a thin plot.” I would agree.