The ending is great, all questions answered but it left off at a part that made me really want to read the next one. But violence, fighting for what’s yours, building an empire, becoming as king—that is the natural course of life. Alex Cross enters the final showdown with the relentless killer who has stalked him and his family for years.

Really it is all delightful nonsense but the baddies are bad, the main characters face terrible odds but always win in the end, and reading the book is one of the better ways to pass a few hours of the day.

And there are a few questions—questions I can’t mention here for fear of spoiling it—that are left unanswered, perhaps to hook the reader onto the next episode; but someone of Patterson’s stature doesn’t have to do that, does he? Me and my husband are huge readers of JP and have probably read almost all of them now, over the many years. Cross and his best buddy, John Sampson, find themselves directly in the crosshairs (no pun intended). The print is almost 400 pages (8:22 Hr for audio) of cat and mouse action-packed style crime thriller.

Cross and Sampson soon become the targets for both groups and they try and work out if ‘M’ is also after their blood. They have had their fair share of fiendish antagonists over the years but the most puzzling surely has to be M or Maestro whose interventions have sometimes been helpful and sometimes deadly. The body count and torturing were higher than normal, and that is saying a lot for a Patterson novel. Running simultaneously with the breakneck action is the theme of family, friendship, love and loyalty that lends a nice human touch to the novel. As always the thrill and darkness of death and evil is tempered by the beautiful Cross family and Nana mama's cooking.While some authors can use their name to sell a book, I cringe at that, as the reader is left wondering if the quality is there. I adore the Patterson books but haven't read one for quite some time so I was excited to see Alex Cross and John Sampson again!