Cross

The book under my critical analysis is “Cross” by James Patterson. Reading James Patterson is always a good choice to me. Being a curious soul I always find Patterson offering thrill and excitement to his readers. His books are pacy, page turner and unputdownable. 

His tall, dark and handsome protagonist is Alex Cross, an FBI officer and psychologist. Despite the fact that he is a cop and his work involves homicide, criminals and murderers, he is a very emotional but intelligent man.

The antagonist in “CROSS” is a psychopath, Butcher. The Butcher’s real name is Michael Sullivan. In his childhood he was physically abused by his father, who was a butcher by profession. In his late teens Michael kills his father and joins the Mafia. But soon Mafia realizes that he is a psycho as he mutilates the dead bodies. They decided to get rid of him.

On the other hand John Sampson, Alex Cross’s childhood friend and a cop also, asks for his help in a case of serial rapist. The brute rapes the girls and threatens them to kill and disfigure them or slashing their face with scalpel in case they report the incident. No girl agrees to help in investigation as every victim was scared. Finally, a lawyer (victim) helps them out by telling them that after raping her, the man showed her few pictures in which there were dead bodies of the girls soaked in blood and disfigured.

Somehow Cross makes a connection and it leads him to the time when his wife, Maria was alive and was working on the rape case as a social worker. And, apparently Maria knew something about that rapist due to which she was shot to death.

From here the cat and mouse chase starts. The Butcher sandwiches between Mafia and Cross. This time it is not a usual case for Cross. This time the culprit across him is his wife’s murderer.

The beauty of the story is that a reader engages in the bloody story too much that along with the Cross, he also wants Butcher to be killed by the hands of Alex Cross. As they have seen the emotional and vulnerable side of Cross throughout the novel. And, the pain he has gone through of single parenting and of loneliness. The excitements of the readers are being heightened by the brutal killings of Mafia as well.

In the end, the antagonist meets his end. Though not as much awfully as I was hoping for. I am a true believer of “you shall reap what you sow”, but the villain died just like that, after savagely killing near 100 people. I was not satisfied with the end at all it could have been a lot better.

In the epilogue, after sometime of the incident, Sampson comes to meet Cross and tells him that it was not Butcher who killed Maria it was some Jimmy Hats. Sampson has found it out years ago and has killed him. But he didn’t tell this to Cross knowing the fact that Cross would regret it for not doing the killing from his hands. Cross thanks Sampson for always being there for him. Throughout the novel I was following the idea that the Butcher was a murderer of Maria but somehow Jimmy Hats who did not play any particular role in the wheel of the plot was Cross’s man and Cross came to realize it after Hats’ death. It leaves the reader into a lingering position.  

Though the plot was good and the curiosity and excitement Patterson has created in the reader’s mind is appreciable, the end was not satisfying which makes it earn an average rate. It’s a good read if you are a fan of Patterson but the way antagonist tasted the consequences of his deeds was very abrupt. I wanted him to confess or some insight of him. It could be a lot better.

Only because of the way Patterson has ended his story, I would not recommend Cross.