Former Marine helicopter pilot Jack Morgan runs Private, a renowned investigation company with branches around the globe. It is where you go when you need maximum force and maximum discretion. Jack is already deep into the investigation of a multi-million dollar NFL gambling scandal and the unsolved slayings of 18 schoolgirls when he learns of a horrific murder close to home: his best friend's wife, Jack's former lover, has been killed. It nearly pushes him over the edge. Instead, Jack pushes back and devotes all of Private's resources to tracking down her killer. With a plot that moves at death-defying speeds, Private is James Patterson sleekest, most exciting thriller ever.
I've long been a James Patterson fan, primarily of his Alex Cross novels - those are brilliant! But it's been a long time since I read any of his novels, so when this book came across my radar screen, I thought I'd give it a go.
I dived into the book with high expectations - it's a James Patterson after all, and a series for which he is teaming up with writers from across the world. I thought it would be interesting.
It wasn't.
In this, the first Private novel that serves as the backbone for the rest of the franchise, we are introduced to Jack Morgan - a former helicopter pilot who crashed out of the Afghanistan war with terrible memories and immeasurable guilt (nothing new here). With the money left to him by his father, he set up Private, a detective agency with state-of-the-art equipment and a free pass to do with it as he pleases.
The most interesting case is the one where they are tracking the dead school girls, but the NFL case just seems to be tacked on as an after thought and I didn't see any reason why the murder of his best friend's wife was in any way relevant to the story.
The writing is sloppy, the dialogues are forced, the plot twists are quite predictable. The characters are two-dimensional - the women, especially, are horrifyingly portrayed. The lead police detective on the schoolgirl case, for example, is a fat, angry woman, while Justine, who is leading the investigation at Private, arrives at murder scenes in stilettos. The men are all effortlessly good looking and the cops are pretty much bumbling idiots. It's very reminiscent of a B-grade Hollywood flick.
I give this book a big thumbs down.
