I picked this up at a yard sale and I'm really glad I didn't have to pay full price for this crap. I have no idea why James Patterson is so popular. I had never read one of his books so I thought for a quarter why not, I'll try it out, I like crime books. The ideas are good, the characters are relatable but the writing is terrible. Instead of creating suspense he tells you 'I'm in suspense', he goes off on tangents to create the vision of what he wants you to see but again instead of actually making the story create the situation he just tells you "He looks like an athlete, but maybe like one who hasn't played in awhile". Why not describe a tall, muscular, slightly aging man instead? Even that wouldn't have been so bad if it hand not been thrown in the middle of a shoot out. How does this help? I'm just distracted now. There are a million little things that irked the hell out of me. It had potential but it failed. Miserably. Blech.