Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
To predict the future, you must first understand the past. This balancing act of a person’s life where the onlooking stranger and interested voyeur can dip in and out and feel informed of the whys and wherefores is often misread and misconstrued, never content to learn everything that led to the moment where their prey fell in the eyes of the public, taking glee, being joyful in the way they perceive that the master has become nothing more than a whisper in the annals of their profession.
To understand the past, you must read how it was truly lived, and in James Patterson’s latest Alex Cross novel, Return Of The Spider, the spectre of the villainous Gary Soneji rears its long dead body and evil soul to taunt the Washington D.C. detective and his long-time partner, John Sampson. This past, a prequel to the events that kick started both writer’s and detective’s career in Along Came A Spider, is a deeply unsettling affair, one that finds its way into the troubling psyche of Gary Murphy’s disturbing alter ego as it shows just how a mind can become fixated on emulating the worst of humanity, to stand head and shoulders above anyone who has committed the most heinous of crimes.
A moment of reflection, of finding a diary of confessions, sees Alex Cross understand his past success is built on sand, like the poet coming across the remains of Ramses II and noting the regret of time and the corrosive nature of tarnished reputation, sees nothing but feet of clay holding up reputation.
It is though to the ever thoughtful way that James Patterson presents his characters, down to earth, intelligent, socially conscious, rather than just being caricatures of race and official rank, that makes the novels he writes a true sense of the comfortable, of being more in tune with live the mundane and every day, the beautiful glimpses into family life, the sorrows that we all must encounter; the American author frames each point with care and attention.
Return Of The Spider has the feel of a new chapter in the life of the detective, that all he has achieved will crumbling down. It would be interesting to witness if this is the case. A great addition to the canon of work by the prolific writer.
Ian D. Hall