This is my favorite James Patterson series. I can’t wait for 6th book

This book ended up on my to-read/listen list because I have been a fan of Marshall Karp and his Lomax/Biggs series. This was a great book to listen to on a car trip - funny enough and enough action to keep me interested. Although this could be a stand alone, I imagine there will be more books with the detective team Jordan and McDonald. I imagine I will check them out and listen to them on future car rides.

I haven’t read James Patterson for a while but I needed a thriller for a book group that I’m in. Suffice it to say this wasn’t the best book I could have chosen to return to the author.

This focuses on a police force that in theory is set up to solve high profile crimes. Turns out these crimes are crimes that happen to take place against rich and famous people. There are three main focuses of this book. The first is a serial bomber targeting the board of a high profile charity that is currently building housing for the cities homeless. The second is the murder of a famous movie director. The third is the robbery of a high stakes off of the books poker game.

First, the bombing case. I’m not sure how the author made a story about a serial bomber in New York boring but he managed it. I didn’t care about the bombs. I didn’t care about the targets. I just flat out didn’t care. The backstory of the actual bomber was the only interesting part of this. I liked him and I liked how his story played out. He’s the reason I’m not giving this book one star.

I guess the case with the murdered woman was vaguely interesting? I can’t say much about it without spoiling her entire story line but I’ve seen it on almost every cop show out there. Boring.

And the story line about the poker game was the worst, mainly for reasons I can’t say. It shouldn’t have been included in the book.

The author tries to drum up tension between the partners at various points in the book but once again, I didn’t scare. There was a whole lot of not caring in this.

And the basic premise of a police force dedicated to rich people is kind of gross. The author writes it himself, there are so many crimes that go unsolved in NYC every day. The rich people task force is offensive in its very nature.

Overall I don’t recommend this book. Patterson has written so many more better books. This one isn’t worth the time taken to read it.

My only "complaint" was that if there are going to be two cases that Red are working simultaneously they should be related to each other. ;)

Not quite as much character development going on behind the mystery-solving in this book, which I felt made the story fall a bit flat. Still was entertaining and fun to read/solve the mystery, but I love this series for the characters so a bit more of their conflicts and growth would have helped improve some of the pace of this story. Kylie's husband has been a point of tension or conflict between the two detectives, but he basically disappears from this one without much mention. I think without him in the picture, the partnership development between the two detectives fell flat.

The thing with the Red books there seems to be multiple things going on at once at it tends to become confusing. It was good didn’t get lost too much.

I was ready to give this three stars and leave dissatisfied until a quarter of the way till the end. I do love Kylie and Zach as a team but as a former couple, I wish that part would die already. Like the other books, my dislike for Kylie hasn’t changed. She’s an egomaniac who has no control in her personal life, but tries to be super cop to make up for it. I’m a huge fan of the series now and can’t wait for the next book.

I like the Red series.