James Patterson, Cross Country Review

Overall Rating

The pace was rather quick and exciting, and the bad guy/conspiracy theory was well thought out, as well as the surprise appearance by a certain character at the end.

Too many 1-5 word sentences with !'s after them, I almost felt as though Cross was acting like a child during those times. Also, there was not enough interaction between Cross and his family, including Bree and Sampson.

This series is going downhill. While the book totals just over 400 pages, it feels more like a 250 page book because of the short chapters and over half the pages only having half a page worth of text. Is it me or is Patterson getting lazy and/or senile? Also, there was just not enough of Sampson. He has grown to become one of my favorite characters in the series, and he played little or no role in the book, until the final moments. It also seemed as though half the book was dedicated to Cross memorializing Africa, even though most of it was contrived and basically just everyman preconceived notions about the continent. The only good part about the book, and what I kept waiting for, was the surprise cameo by Kyle Craig. Other than that, and trying to keep up with the story, it was only a so-so book.