As much as I enjoy reading James Patterson, and as much as I am in love with Alex Cross (yes, I admit it), this installment failed to satisfy me. And failed miserably. Perhaps my disappointment was in the novel's grand scale international crime? These baddies seemed to kill for the sake of killing. Not to give spoilers, but even the deaths of some antagonists seemed anticlimactic given the way Cross had pursued them and vice versa, and the extent of the trouble they had caused him and the public in general. Or perhaps it was the lack of truly interesting characters that put me off? The Weasel and the Wolf? Come on now. Antagonists with zero personality and zero redeeming qualities. I couldn’t even hate them.

Even Cross' love life seemed stilted in London Bridges. The passion between Alex and his Jamilla doesn’t ring true, at least for me.

And, there are too many characters to keep up with in this one - on both the good and the dark sides - sometimes it was hard to differentiate. True, London Bridges is written with Patterson's usual flair and has a detail-oriented plot. Still I had trouble staying with the book to its conclusion and found myself skipping passages. Not a good sign. Maybe there was too much “government” in it? And the idea of all these entities working in unison? Yeah, like that would happen in the real world.

London Bridges had me thinking throughout, "enough already with the bombing and killing - and for goodness sake, who is the real Wolf?"

My feelings about London Bridges (this one goes into the donation box), however, will not keep me from reading future Patterson/Cross installments.