Finished the most recent Alex Cross outing from James Patterson the other day. I actually found it not too bad, but having said that I suppose that my expectations were set pretty low by some of his recent novels. Once upon a time, many years ago, I picked up a second hand copy of Along Came A Spider in a second hand bookstore, and from then on I was hooked on the thrillers about Alex, the detective / psychologist battling against the bad people of Washington DC and often the rest of the US as well. I thoroughly enjoyed the series for quite some time, and would grab the hardback as soon as it came out, but in recent years the quality has gone rapidly downhill. Now I pick up the paperback when it is on special offer (which they always will be now that Patterson is well and truly in the quantity over quality game). I then read with trepidation, hoping that Patterson hasn't hammered too many more nails into his reputation. Then again, it's not clear how much he cares as no doubt he can rely on there being a huge number of mugs like me out there, willing to buy and buy and buy, hoping for a return to form one day.
The current book ends by giving us a sneak preview of the first few pages of the next one due out soon. Alarmingly, Kyle Craig seems to be back again - wheel out the old adversaries when ideas are thin on the ground ...
One other thing - renting out his name to other authors to help them up the publishing ladder is just not on! He can't have that much involvement in the books that show his name plus another on the cover - there just isn't time.