Pop Goes the Weasel (Alex Cross)

A series of killings in the forgotten, crime-infested ghettos of southeastern DC has sent Cross and his 6'9" 250-pound-partner, John Sampson in search of the "Jane Doe" killer. However, their racist, tyrannical boss George Pitman orders them to stay out of the southeast and investigate the high-profile murder of a wealthy white man. Cross already has suspicions that the murders are linked, but when Sampson's ex turns up in an abandoned southeast warehouse kicked to death, the two detectives carry on with their original investigation.

Meanwhile, Cross's long-time love, Christine, (Cat and Mouse) has taken prominence in his life and it looks as if the two will finally get hitched--with one hitch: Cross leaves the force. Although Cross's instinct tells him to quit--to not put everything he loves in jeopardy again--he's compelled to catch the Weasel. Akin to a slick, Hollywood action flick, Pop Goes the Weasel doesn't have time for meaningful character development and thoughtful moral analysis. And it doesn't need to. Its winning formula is based in short scenes (chapters average about three pages), addictive plot progression and mean dialogue:

"Sampson sighed and said, "I think her tongue is stapled inside the other girl. I'm pretty sure that's it, Alex. The Weasel stapled them together." I looked at the two girls and shook my head. "I don't think so. A staple, even a surgical one, would come apart on the tongue's surface... Crazy glue would work."

The killer, as we are quick to learn, has a solid disguise and the skills to employ misinformation and disinformation. He also has a penchant for playing games, and he appears to have read "The Dice Man". Who he kills, where, and when, are all largely random decisions - a sure way to camouflage his insanity and disrupt any pattern to the crimes.

Thus we enter a cat and mouse game, intriguingly written in two narrative voices. Cross appears in the first person, the murderer and the incidentals in the third person. It's an intriguing technique and helps elaborate a sense of distance between hunter and hunted. Patterson writes with page-turning ease and you are quickly swept up in the story. There are unsatisfactory elements - a computer geek magically comes up with answers at the right time, there are a couple of over-stretched coincidences - but it's a helter-skelter, entertaining tale and one which fans of the thriller genre will love.