Author: James Patterson & Mark Pearson
Title: Private London
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
James Patterson writes more books each year than most people read. That fact that they all reach the New York Times Bestseller's list is an amazing feat. To be this prolific he partners with other authors to co-write his various brands - Alex Cross, Women's Murder Club, and his newest offering, The Private Series.
"Private" is the name of the world's most elite investigation firm run by Jack Morgan, a former CIA agent. He hires specialists from military, espionage, forensics, and hi-tech industries to give his agency the leading edge on crime solving. Private also doesn't have to concern itself with the same rules that normal police agencies do, which makes Private a great resource for rich people and even government agencies who need to avoid the press or typical investigation procedures.
What Patterson has creatively established with this new series is releasing different books in the United States and England. While the two books first released in the U.S. are based in Los Angeles and center around Jack Morgan, the two books released in the U.K. focus on the Private branch set up in London. The two London books have a British tone and it is obvious that Patterson is co-writing these books with British authors. Having established a reader base in both countries Patterson is now releasing the books in the opposite countries. Since Private has offices in Rome, Dublin, Berlin and Sydney, expect more books to be published in this same manner.
In Private London, Jack Morgan sends an American student, Hannah Shapiro, overseas under a false identity to attend college. He has put the head of the London branch of Private, Dan Carter, in charge of her safety. Unfortunately security measures fail and she is kidnapped. Dan must use all of Private's resources to find her before she is harmed.
The second storyline has to do with bodies piling up with missing organs. But not only are the normal donor organs missing but so are the ring fingers on each victim. This case appears to be more than organ harvesting for the rich, as this serial killer has an agenda that is baffling Detective Inspector Kristy Webb.
While the two stories don't intertwine, Dan Carter and Kristy Webb do. While their marriage dissolved a year-to-the-day from these new cases, their need for each other's help hasn't expired. Both Dan and Kristy offer each other assistance to help solve both the kidnapping and murder cases.
Like most Patterson novels Private London has very short chapters. For a book of just 370 pages there are a whopping 116 chapters. This allows for a lot of scene changes, jumping back and forth between the two cases, and getting right down to the conflict in the chapter. Unfortunately what suffers is character development, interesting dialog, and building tension. There could be a good story or two in this book but it advances so quickly that it is hard to really care about either one. A different writer could use this book as an outline and deliver a much better tale.
While Patterson will never win a Pulitzer for his crime novels, they are still enjoyable if you are looking for a detective story with clever twists and turns. This book certainly had its share of those and will keep the reader guessing at the outcome. Some of the twists are a bit hard to believe, but Patterson doesn't give you time to dwell on it because there is a new chapter starting on the next page. And then as soon as you are done with this novel he has a new one waiting for you at the book store.
*This Review First Published 12/10/2012
