Return of the Spider

Alex Cross #34

by James Patterson

Alex Cross is back in the thirty-third instalment of James Patterson's bestselling series... but so is an old enemy he thought he'd laid to rest...

Genres: Thriller, Mystery, Mystery Thriller, Suspense, Crime, Fiction

407 pages, Kindle Edition

Expected publication November 24, 2025

About the author

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JIMMY Patterson Books
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James Patterson is the most popular storyteller of our time and the creator of such unforgettable characters and series as Alex Cross, the Women’s Murder Club, Jane Smith, and Maximum Ride. He has coauthored #1 bestselling novels with Bill Clinton, Dolly Parton, and Michael Crichton, as well as collaborated on #1 bestselling nonfiction, including The Idaho Four, Walk in My Combat Boots, and Filthy Rich. Patterson has told the story of his own life in the #1 bestselling autobiography James Patterson by James Patterson. He is the recipient of an Edgar Award, ten Emmy Awards, the Literarian Award from the National Book Foundation, and the National Humanities Medal.

Reviews

[Mandy White (mandylovestoread) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am always so thrilled to be an early reviewer for one of my all time favourite authors, James Patterson, so a massive thank you to Little,Brown and Company for the opportunity.

I flew through this book, elate, once you start you won’t want to stop. As a longtime reader of the Alex Ross series, the thought of going back to where it all began was so exciting. Gary Soneji was such an evil, twisted psychopath and Alex’s nemesis. Years after his death, his cabin in the woods is discovered, along with his murder weapons, research and a murder book, a book that blows Alex’s world apart. Did he get it all wrong?

It was fascinating to see Alex Cross and John Sampson as young, green detectives at the start of their careers in law enforcement. They are still learning the job, but still have that same determination that we have been used to throughout the series. This is now book number 34, and this was a brilliant way to bring the worst killer they have ever faced back to life for a while. We see how Soneji started his killing spree, what was going through his mind, how he picked his victims and now he was going to kill them.

It was lovely to see Alex as the family man too. Back when his first love Maria was pregnant with their second child, Damon was a little boy and Nana Mama was a younger but still feisty woman.

I will never tire of reading about these characters, and getting more insight into their personalities and younger lives was brilliant. I could have kept reading this for days, but as always with James Patterson, I just had to keep reading. I think this may be one of my favourites in the series, a thrill ride from the past, full of tension and drama.

Published on November 17th, a must read for Alex Cross fans.

[LindaPf · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the 34th (!!!!) installment in the Detective Alex Cross series, which began in 1993 with “Along Came a Spider.” I know I read the first one near when it was first published and I definitely finished all the ones with titles that mimicked children’s rhymes. In “Cross time,” only eighteen years have passed, but it’s long enough in the past for cellphones and GPS not to be universal technology. Only an expensive car phone the size of a brick seems to be the height of twenty year old tech in this flashback thriller.

An old journal is found in a secret room and we then get a backstory on Cross’s first deadly enemy, Gary Soneji, as well as the early tale of the Cross/Sampson partnership, when they were investigating multiple earlier murders by serial killer Soneji without knowing it. In the early Cross books, Alex’s wife Maria was always an off-screen memory, having already been killed in a drive-by shooting, but she’s a full fledged character here, pregnant with their daughter while Damon is a toddler. I did open up the original “Along Came a Spider” to try to reconcile the timeline, and I was mostly reminded why I loved the Alex Cross stories so long ago.

The flashback story gets a bit bogged down as Cross and Sampson juggle multiple other murders unrelated to the Spider, but it does show their development as young detectives, using their own dedication skills prior to the advent of DNA evidence and ubiquitous camera surveillance. Bringing back Cross’ greatest nemesis creates a suspenseful timeline — and you’ll be tempted (like me) to read “Along Came a Spider” if you never did so (warning: female characters wear leg warmers). 4.5 stars!

Literary Pet Peeve Checklist:
Green Eyes (only 2% of the real world, yet it seems like 90% of all fictional females): YES Soneji used green colored contacts as a disguise.
Horticultural Faux Pas (plants out of season or growing zones, like daffodils in autumn or bougainvillea in Alaska): NO Although kudzu is used as a green drapery to hide the suspect.

Thank you to Little, Brown, and Company and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy!

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gary is a ghost that won’t go away and we love it! He’s formidable villain for a tenacious and perspective hero like Alex Cross.

This rewind in time is great for avid Cross fans looking for a peak behind the invincible man. We wince at every loss and cheer at every win because we just love Alex and that’s exciting. Fingers crossed we get to see some of this moments in the TV series!

Favorite chapter

Chapter 26 is so cute with lots of family vibes and it really humanizes this superhero of a character. I love how his family is always down to encourage him. It makes us feel like we are around the table too.

Favorite quote: "Use your imagination, but make sure it's imagination rooted in experience and reality. My mother taught me that was what being creative was — learning a skill well enough that you can use your imagination to improve it."


Thank you @Little, Brown and Co and @James Patterson for the advance reader copy.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

#Binge Reviewing my previous Reads #Alex Cross

Apologia Pro Scripta Sua: My first brush with Alex Cross wasn’t through the printed page at all, but on the silver screen — Morgan Freeman’s gravitas in Along Came a Spider and Kiss the Girls drew me in. Years rolled by, and only in 2024 did I find myself pulled back into his world, this time through Cross, the American television series created by Ben Watkins. Streaming on Amazon Prime Video since November 14, 2024, it stars Aldis Hodge, Isaiah Mustafa, and Juanita Jennings, and reimagines James Patterson’s novels for a new generation. Here, Alex Cross stands not just as a forensic psychologist but also a D.C. Metro homicide detective, partnered with the stalwart John Sampson, hunting some of the nation’s most dangerous killers. Inevitably, I circled back to the source, plunging headlong into the books themselves—bingeing all the way to Return of the Spider.

From the moment I got wind of Return of the Spider, what stood out was how it positions itself not just as “another Cross novel” but as a reckoning with a returning old nemesis—and with Alex Cross’s own past choices. Patterson is revisiting one of the defining villains of the series, Gary Soneji (a.k.a. “the Spider”), and this time he’s digging into the gaps in Alex’s early detective work. Readers who’ve followed Cross’s arc for years will recognise a tone of reflection and, yes, unfinished business. It’s not just about catching a killer again; it’s about confronting whether justice was ever fully served in the first case, and whether Alex Cross might have made missteps that let something dangerous fester.

What makes Return of the Spider intriguing is its dual timeline and the way it seems to move between Cross as a seasoned detective and Cross as a younger man. There are echoes of Along Came a Spider (since Soneji was first introduced there), but this time Patterson appears to be asking, 'What might Alex have missed when he was young?' What were the consequences of those misses? The discovery of a hidden cabin full of trophies and diaries, a journal titled Profiles in Homicidal Genius, suggests that Soneji—or those who’ve taken up his legacy—left breadcrumbs that Alex didn’t follow. That setup promises both old-school thriller tension and the emotional complexity that comes with regret and unfinished business.

Comparing this to other recent entries like Alex Cross Must Die or The House of Cross, Return of the Spider seems to lean more on nostalgia and legacy while still trying to push the series forward. Murderous threats and moral compromise remain Patterson’s bread and butter, but here there’s more of a prequel vibe—flashbacks, revelations about Cross’s rookie years, seeing him as a young father and husband with Maria. We’re reminded that Cross has always carried responsibility and grief, but here we get a chance to see how those burdens started shaping him. The series has had arcs where Cross is tested by tech threats, political conspiracies, and family vulnerabilities; this one seems narrower in scope, more psychological, and more about origins and legacy than broad conspiracies (though “Spider’s evil influence spreading wider than he thought” indicates the danger is still large).

From what I've gathered, the tone may be darker in certain ways—not necessarily more gothic in action, but heavier in emotional weight. For long-time readers, the mere idea that Alex may have imprisoned the wrong man or overlooked something that let Soneji or his influence survive is effective because it shakes the foundation of what we assume about Cross’s infallibility. Earlier books showcased Cross’s intellect, empathy, and endurance; Return of the Spider promises a Cross who has to look back—at what he did right and what he may have done wrong—and find a way to correct or atone without losing confidence in his path forward.

One of the narrative pleasures here (from previews and reviews) is that Patterson uses short chapters and quick shifts, yes, but also gives space for Cross’s earlier self to exist. These aren’t just flashbacks for thrills; they are emotional anchor points. We see Cross as newer at the job, still balancing family (Maria is alive in these sections, Cross as husband and father with new children), still learning, still vulnerable in ways the later Cross has not been.

That contrast—between younger Cross’s zeal, mistakes, pride, and uncertainty and older Cross’s confidence, scars, and regret—seems central. It feels reminiscent of entries like Criss Cross, which played with memory and legacy, but here the stakes are more directly tied to a villain who has haunted the beginning of the series.

There are risks with this kind of story. When an author revisits the first books or first villains, the weight of reader expectation is heavy. Some may feel Patterson is retreading old ground—after all, Soneji has been vanquished before.

The question is whether the new revelations feel fresh (they seem designed to) rather than just fanservice. Another risk is coherence: managing two timelines, balancing younger Cross’s missteps with current Cross’s detective work, revealing enough without spoiling too much. If Patterson pulls this off, the payoff will be strong: clarity, insight, emotional catharsis. If not, it might feel like unnecessary stretching of an old story.

In terms of how it fits in the arc of Cross books, Return of the Spider seems like it could serve as a pivot: reinforcing how Cross’s past shapes his present in more concrete ways. Many recent novels (like Must Die and House of Cross) have pushed Cross into external threats—political institutions, tech abuse, kidnapping, and conspiracies.

But this one pulls the lens back inward: the external threat (Spider’s influence) is still there, but the internal threat—of Cross doubting whether his early convictions, investigative choices, or judgements were perfect—takes more centre stage. That makes it feel like Patterson is asking both: what binds Alex Cross to his past, and what can he do now to correct what was wrong?

As for pacing and suspense, the indications are high. The hidden cabin, the old diaries, the clues of trophies, the possibility an innocent man was imprisoned—all of that gives strong hooks. Patterson knows how to deploy short cliffhanger chapters. The structure of rediscovering old files and retracing investigations lends itself to tension. It’s likely that the novel will alternate between “what young Alex saw” and “what older Alex missed”, which, when done well, gives a lot of suspense because you anticipate the moments of revelation and also dread the possible consequences of wrong moves.

Emotionally, this novel has the potential to be one of the more affecting recent Cross entries. For fans, there’s the chance to see Cross’s mistakes, regrets, maybe even shame. For new readers, there’s enough plot to grip you—revenge, mystery, wrong convictions, maybe betrayal—but also enough human stakes (family, conscience, legacy) to leave an aftertaste. I suspect the moments of Cross’s reflection—his guilt, his attempt to do right by victims and by the past—will carry more weight than in many of the more action-heavy Cross novels.

If I were to guess how it will compare with other recent titles: Return of the Spider is likely to outdo Deadly Cross and House of Cross in emotional resonance, because its central conflict isn’t just stopping a threat but reconciling with a past that Cross believed was resolved. It may not have quite the political scale of Target: Alex Cross or the technological menace of Must Die, but the nostalgia and the moral uncertainty may make it feel more grounded, more personal. It will appeal especially to those who’ve been following the series from early on and who care about continuity and Cross’s development.

Where it might lag is in novelty: if the revelations are predictable, or if the two timelines feel too disjointed, or if young Alex is portrayed with too much polish, then the narrative risk may undercut the emotional punch. But from the pre-release descriptions, Patterson is deliberately setting up missteps, regrets, forgotten clues and hidden consequences. That suggests he wants to push beyond nostalgia into something more introspective.

What stays with you in this kind of story is not just the solved puzzle but the weight of history—not just the villain’s, but the detective’s. Crosswalking those past paths, seeing what he missed, perhaps seeing what he shouldn't have taken for granted.

For long-time readers, that is satisfying because it completes arcs; for new readers, it adds depth (though some references will land better if you know the old books).

On balance, Return of the Spider seems like it could be one of the more memorable entries in the later half of the Alex Cross series—not because of bigger explosions necessarily, but because of its confrontation with origin and error. It promises to reaffirm why Cross has been compelling: not just the chase, but the moral cost of being the one who chases. Patterson seems to be saying: you can build a legacy, but you must also build it honestly, acknowledging what was overlooked and what was lost.'

From what I know, after finishing it, one might feel: haunted, satisfied, maybe unsettled—because some questions may be answered but others raised anew. And in Alex Cross’s case, sometimes that ongoing uncertainty is what gives his story its life.

Return of the Spider is shaping up as more than a thrill ride; it's a story about what it means to face your own past, when the past thought resolved comes crawling back. And in the Alex Cross saga—that mixture of fear, justice, regret, and empathy—that might be exactly what fans want next.

[Carrie Shields · Rating 5 out of 5]

...𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐞𝐲𝐞𝐬, 𝐚𝐧 𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐟𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐲 𝐜𝐫𝐮𝐦𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐩𝐬𝐞𝐝.

The very first Alex Cross thriller, ALONG CAME A SPIDER, featured antagonist Gary Soneji, who was so diabolically cunning, so clever, that he has firmly cemented his place in the list of top fictional adversaries.

in RETURN OF THE SPIDER, the reader gets to see our beloved Dr. Cross as something we haven't for a very long time, and that's as a novice detective. In present day, Cross and his partner Sampson are investigating a crime when it's discovered that a property owner with ties to the case was Gary Murphy aka Gary Soneji. It's further discovered that Soneji kept a murder book detailing his transformation from substitute teacher to serial killer—including clues that imply that Alex Cross made a series of deadly missteps in his investigation, which means an innocent man may be serving a life sentence for crimes he didn't commit.

Going back in time to see Alex as a novice was eye-opening. Even with almost no experience, his instincts were honed; razor-sharp and deadly. His method of investigating that got him humiliated and disciplined by his boss would one day lead to his profiling career. Best of all was seeing him happy as a new father and husband to his beloved Maria. There was a definite sense of melancholy throughout, and I thoroughly enjoyed the structure and plot of this book. Many thanks to Little Brown and Company for the early copy. Pre-order now and receive yours on November 17, 2025.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Return of the Spider by James Patterson is the thirty-fourth book in the Alex Cross series/franchise and was published in October 2025. Many Alex Cross fans will automatically recognise the references to the Spider and the evil that was Gary Murphy known as Gary Soneji.

The New Jersey Police have called the Chief Kane at Metro PD asking for the presence of Alex Cross and his partner John Sampson. They both need to get to New Jersey as quickly as possible but are not given the reason why. Which they do.

In a hidden cabin, that nobody had anything to do with had been bought at auction and the grounds, the land around the building is giving up bodies. But Alex Cross is taken down to the basement to a specially created room, where there are multiple trophies taken from murder victims. Cross is handed a book, Soneji’s murder diary and all the cases that he and Sampson had investigated over the years which had seen him sent to jail.

As Cross reads the diary everyone is outside looking for more bodies, while he is being sent back over thirty years to when he and Sampson began their careers in Homicide. It is not long before Cross realises that he and his partner are also victims of Soneji. As he reads his mind travels back to their first case and the successes, they had in breaking it wide open. Cross is sick to the stomach.

Patterson and Alex Cross are back on form, at last!

[Robin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first Alex Cross novel, ALONG CAME A SPIDER, published in 1993, introduced the serial killer Soneji, who appeared in a number of Alex Cross books throughout the series. Now Patterson returns to Soneji in this exciting prequel. A lair that Soneji used has been discovered, and with it a hidden journal that reveals all of Soneji's secrets. When Cross reads it, he is shocked and saddened, and is transported back into the past, taking the reader along for the ride. We see a very young Cross, a rookie cop with a new Psychology degree, partnering with friend John Sampson, himself only a little more experienced. Together they pursue Soneji and his crimes. It is fascinating to see Alex as a new cop, being uncertain and making mistakes. It is also fun to see him as a young hubby and new father, as his wife Maria is still alive and is carrying second child Jannie. Nana Mama is also involved, younger and living on her own. What a fun read! Thanks to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for providing an ARC.

[Judy Odom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Return of The Spider is the most anticpated prequel to Along Came a Spider with Alex Cross and his nemesis Gary Soneji.

The book is gripping and addictive from start to finish and once you start reading there is no stopping.

A journal of Gary Soneji is discovered and as Alex reads it he cant help but reflect back over the many cases involving this evil man.

Soneji will give you chills right down your spine.

We are all blessed with hindsight but Cross blames himself for mistakes made as he and John Sampson both young detectives investigated this serial killer years ago.

It was a fascinating look back at Along Came a Spider with Alex at the start of his investigative career, the learning curve that follows .

Alex Cross is my favourite all time detective.

This book should come with a warning: you will want to go back and read Along Came a Spider. ( I dusted off my copy)

Thanks to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for the prvilege of reading and reviewing Return of the Spider

[Cory Beyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and the master James Patterson at Little, Brown and Company for this ARC. We are re-introduced to Gary Soneji from Alex Cross #1 - Along Came a Spider. When Alex Cross and his partner Sampson come across Soneji's lair, he has flashbacks to his rookie years when Soneji's reign of terror began. Another great read but it made me feel like this may be the beginning of the end of this series which makes me sad. #ReturnoftheSpider #JamesPatterson #LittleBrownandCompany #November2025

[Laura Wonderchick · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this prequel to Along Came A Spider, we get to visit Alex Cross as a young detective and see how he learned to make his mark. We see him as a young father and husband with Maria and a longtime friend of Sampson. It brought back many memories of reading ACAS and I remember why I became an instant fan of James Patterson! For fans of Cross, you don’t want to miss this one! Many thanks to the publisher for this copy for read and review

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Back story on the Spider, one of Crosses most nefarious cases.
Alex and John Sampson are thrown back into the beginning of criminal investigation brotherhood as
the similarities to the early Spider case resurface in recent brutal killings.
Lots of back and firth ...then and now., and while it serves to bridge a recognizable connection, it does get the
present story mired down at tines.
Still good Alex and still good reading.

[Joanne Hazeldine · Rating 3 out of 5]

As an avid Alec Cross fan I was a little disappointed in this book. It felt rather like a filler, as though perhaps there is nowhere left for Cross to go. That being said I liked learning about the history of the Spider. Overall a 3* l did enjoy the book but I would have liked to have seen Cross at his best

[Sharon]

Purchased in epub format from Barnes and Noble for my Nook.

[MaryAnn]

Audiobook

[Germaine · Rating 5 out of 5]

one of his better outtings

[HM Burford · Rating 5 out of 5]

amazing read

Amazing writing by Patterson

Loved this and can’t wait for the next one

Always read Alex cross and Michael Bennett

Thanks