Walter J. (reading-is-bliss) - , reviewed on 8/23/2019 + 73 more book reviews

Since this turned out to be not just one novel, but 3 novelettes (James Patterson calls them "Bookspots"), the first of which (entitled Dead Man Running) I kind of liked, the 2nd (entitled 113 Minutes) I found something less than "ok", and the 3rd by the title that appears on the front cover, an OMG-I-Can't-Believe-James Patterson-Admits-He-Co-authored-A-Book-This-Bad, a composite 2-Star rating is probably more than the book deserves. James Patterson, who has been referred to as "the gold standard by which all others are judged", is an author for which I have always regarded with some considerable ambivalence. Unquestionably he is capable of writing some outstanding page-turner bestsellers, as he has proven again and again. For one who has had a record-setting 19 consecutive #1 New York Times best-selling novels, that fact is indisputable. Yet somewhere along the line (my guess is it happened sometime in Patterson's mid-forties, though it could have been earlier), he apparently set his sights on becoming the world's all-time best-selling hardcover fiction author. To do this he had to invent a formula for turning out new books at a more phenomenal rate than any other professional hardcover fiction writer. And so he obviously did. One part of this and perhaps the most important part was an apparent decision to begin collaborating with others as co-authors of many of his books. Prior to 2000, he experimented with this only once, but subsequently, he began doing so more and more frequently. And in fact, in recent years it is difficult to find any book authored by Patterson alone. Is there any? I am sure I am not the only one who wonders just how much of a part his chosen co-authors actually play in the writing of his books. No question in as much as Patterson holds the New York Times record for most Hardcover Fiction best-selling titles by a single author, which is also a Guinness World Record, his co-author strategy can only have helped him. However, from my own personal perspective, while it has hardly affected his popularity (as reflected in book sales) the quality of his writing has definitely suffered. He's clearly written some pretty meh stuff, case-in-point The 13-Minute Murder. I only hope it is not a trend.

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