The Bitter Guide to Four Blind Mice
May. 11th, 2004 09:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thebitterguyNever trust anyone whose average chapter length is three pages. Two and a bit, if you count the fact that there’s a half page wasted on each chapter at the beginning, and they usually end with another half page gone.
Use a little math, and you realize that there are 115 chapters. So, if you have an average of ¾ of a page wasted each chapter that means there are about 86 pages that are nothing. That drops the page count to about 300 pages. Of course, many of those 300 pages are full of nothing, but that’s hardly an uncommon complaint.
While on remote assignment at work, I found myself seated at a desk where a copy of James Patterson's Four Blind Mice was left, unattended and unloved. It's like God was punishing me.
The dialogue is lazy, and generally rings hollow and unpleasant. While pages of exposition are un-necessary, a little introduction to the characters is good. Even though this is the first of the Exciting Alex Cross Adventures I've ever read, I'd like some kind of heads up to know that the character is eating breakfast with his grandmother (or possibly just his mother) and sons while I read it. Of course, characters we don't hope would immediately die are also good.
It’s also great to have a character who’s the epitome of Army discipline who snaps in the middle of his own murder trial. Hey, discipline AND a mensa level IQ ("surely the jury won't take me trying to snap my attorney’s neck into consideration during the trial!". He then avoids telling his detective buddy he’s on death row, but when Jimmy McCrimesolver shows up he immediately asks him to look into his case. "Hey, I know I voided letting you know, but since you're here, would you mind investigating the crime I'm to be executed for in 38 minutes? These are some darn good bagels, by the way."
The plot involves a group of ex-military types who go around killing people by framing them for the murders of others and letting a very efficient criminal justice system take them out. Well, guess we've got another argument against the death penalty now.
Of course, the whole fact that death sentence appeals usually take more than the three weeks they seem to take in this book makes it a strange murder weapon. And the moral compass of the mastermind in this book is just kinda odd. "Hey, let’s get vengeance on people for killing people by killing other people and framing them for it, so they get killed!" Does anyone else find the problem in this?
The villainous Three Blind Mice come across as really bad clichés that would be more at home in a pirate movie with all the growling and eating of meat they do. They're Badass because they can kill people who are either weaker than them, or whom they outnumber, but preferably both. They're also geniuses, because they film everything they do. Wow. No CHANCE they may do anything incriminating there.
Apparently, the military police are profoundly stupid, because they lack the capacity to notice ongoing trends in murders. "Hey, notice how all these guys killed people in the same way, and all claimed to be innocent, and most even had really good alibis? What are the odds of THAT?"
There’s even a Hannibal Lecter rip-off that comes across as slightly less threatening than the original. In fact, you have to wonder how scary a mastermind he would be if the dough-headed lead of this book was able to catch him.
The book has an ongoing plot from previous books, and none of it matters a whit. While it’s great that detective Cross is starting a romantic relationship with a homicide detective from California, it’s also fairly irrelevant to the plot. If I were reading his LJ (although, to be honest if I were reading an LJ this boring I'd skip it because, really, it’s just hard to read), and gave a shit about his life, then perhaps I wouldn't mind reading about his love life. Since I am, in fact, reading a piece of fiction, the romance of Alex Cross is, truly, irrelevant.
So, yes. The A plot: Dumb. The B plot: also dumb. Sub plots C, D &E? I’ve already forgotten about them.
Use a little math, and you realize that there are 115 chapters. So, if you have an average of ¾ of a page wasted each chapter that means there are about 86 pages that are nothing. That drops the page count to about 300 pages. Of course, many of those 300 pages are full of nothing, but that’s hardly an uncommon complaint.
While on remote assignment at work, I found myself seated at a desk where a copy of James Patterson's Four Blind Mice was left, unattended and unloved. It's like God was punishing me.
The dialogue is lazy, and generally rings hollow and unpleasant. While pages of exposition are un-necessary, a little introduction to the characters is good. Even though this is the first of the Exciting Alex Cross Adventures I've ever read, I'd like some kind of heads up to know that the character is eating breakfast with his grandmother (or possibly just his mother) and sons while I read it. Of course, characters we don't hope would immediately die are also good.
It’s also great to have a character who’s the epitome of Army discipline who snaps in the middle of his own murder trial. Hey, discipline AND a mensa level IQ ("surely the jury won't take me trying to snap my attorney’s neck into consideration during the trial!". He then avoids telling his detective buddy he’s on death row, but when Jimmy McCrimesolver shows up he immediately asks him to look into his case. "Hey, I know I voided letting you know, but since you're here, would you mind investigating the crime I'm to be executed for in 38 minutes? These are some darn good bagels, by the way."
The plot involves a group of ex-military types who go around killing people by framing them for the murders of others and letting a very efficient criminal justice system take them out. Well, guess we've got another argument against the death penalty now.
Of course, the whole fact that death sentence appeals usually take more than the three weeks they seem to take in this book makes it a strange murder weapon. And the moral compass of the mastermind in this book is just kinda odd. "Hey, let’s get vengeance on people for killing people by killing other people and framing them for it, so they get killed!" Does anyone else find the problem in this?
The villainous Three Blind Mice come across as really bad clichés that would be more at home in a pirate movie with all the growling and eating of meat they do. They're Badass because they can kill people who are either weaker than them, or whom they outnumber, but preferably both. They're also geniuses, because they film everything they do. Wow. No CHANCE they may do anything incriminating there.
Apparently, the military police are profoundly stupid, because they lack the capacity to notice ongoing trends in murders. "Hey, notice how all these guys killed people in the same way, and all claimed to be innocent, and most even had really good alibis? What are the odds of THAT?"
There’s even a Hannibal Lecter rip-off that comes across as slightly less threatening than the original. In fact, you have to wonder how scary a mastermind he would be if the dough-headed lead of this book was able to catch him.
The book has an ongoing plot from previous books, and none of it matters a whit. While it’s great that detective Cross is starting a romantic relationship with a homicide detective from California, it’s also fairly irrelevant to the plot. If I were reading his LJ (although, to be honest if I were reading an LJ this boring I'd skip it because, really, it’s just hard to read), and gave a shit about his life, then perhaps I wouldn't mind reading about his love life. Since I am, in fact, reading a piece of fiction, the romance of Alex Cross is, truly, irrelevant.
So, yes. The A plot: Dumb. The B plot: also dumb. Sub plots C, D &E? I’ve already forgotten about them.
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Why California
Date: 2004-05-11 06:49 pm (UTC)Re: Why California
Date: 2004-05-11 07:37 pm (UTC)Is this Patterson guy real, or just a computer? Or a committee of former Mack Bolan writers who have suburban houses and minivans to pay for now?