One James Patterson novel down, thirty gazillion to go. Maybe I'll just stop here.

My mom's house is full of what one might affectionately deem "Costco Hardbacks." I picked this one up on a recent visit. I liked the idea of making a political activist into a murder mystery villain, so I kept reading. It had lots of promise, and I was quite willing to forgive the my-first-draft-got-published-because-I'm-James-Patterson-so-SUCK-IT! prose so long as the story was fun, and it was.

But as the book neared the end, it's clunky attempts at romance required resolution, and that's where this book went horribly wrong. It's clear that Patterson enjoys writing police action. He should just leave romance and other human elements out, because, when he's required to make his characters behave like real people, he has no idea what he's doing.