The 6th Target, by James Patterson, Reviewed

JamesPatterson's The 6th Target is, ofcourse, a thriller. I'm not a particular lover of thrillers, though I wrote aromantic thriller as my own first novel. I read this book because it wasamongst a large number on my shelves and I'd made a decision at the start ofthe year to read all that were unread. I think I picked this one up second hand ata charity shop.Patterson'sbook took me some time to enter, largely because I couldn't initially find acharacter I cared about. But this book is one of a longish series, so perhaps theauthor assumed readers would already be familiar with his female homicidedetective. It took me a lot of chapters to become involved but, once I washooked, I read the book quite quickly. Withover a hundred chapters, some only 2 pages long, and the usual short sentencestructure of the genre, it was a relatively quick and undemanding read. Though,at times, I lost track of who was who amongst the dozens of characters.Threebasic story threads weave through the book and at times I was puzzled aboutwhich we were looking at. But the stories are told in linear form and, once Igot used to the style of presentation, I moved swiftly forward. I try not towrite reviews with spoilers, so I'll leave the story itself unexplained. Enoughto know that the book contains murders, of course, kidnapping and other crimes.Such acts should generally absorb the reader and make him care but I found Ionly started to really care towards the end of the book. Thereis quite a lot of detail that adds little to the story and I guess a good fifthof the text could be removed without detriment. In fact, it would improve thepace.There'splenty of drama here and some moral messaging amongst the violence that drivesthe story. There's a lot of procedural detective work, and some court scenes,that enlightened me about the US justice system.Igradually came to know the main characters and slowly grew to find some empathywith the female detective, Lindsay Boxer, and her mission to capture the guiltyparties for the various crimes. Naturally, she had a complication in her lovelife; what detective doesn't? But that aspect of her life was written in suchbland terms that I had little response to it. Her professional concerns,however, were depicted with more emotional content and I was with her towardthe end of the book as the denouement unwound and the natural conclusion waspresented.WouldI read any more of this? Well, I have another Patterson book on the shelves,unread, and I won't be getting to it soon, though it was originally the firsttitle on my 'to read' list. There just isn't enough emotional connection forme. The story is told and I prefer to be shown. But the guy sells a lot ofbooks, so the failing is probably with me. I just didn't ever feel sufficientlyinvolved; I felt like a neutral observer presented with enough superficialfacts to make judgements on the crimes but lacking any real connection to thecharacters that might make me care about them. Ifyou're into crime and more interested in details than the deeper interaction ofcharacters, you'll probably enjoy this a lot more than I did.