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| Four Blind Mice (Alex Cross) | 
 enlarge | Author: James Patterson
Publisher: Little, Brown
Category: Book
List Price: $27.45
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Avg. Customer Rating:  240 reviews
Sales Rank: 52046
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.6 x 6.3 x 1.3
ISBN: 0316693006
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780316693004
ASIN: 0316693006
Publication Date: November 18, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Thriller--not a mystery or detective novel July 14, 2007
The mystery/detective novel was a rather pure form in its earlier days. The focus was not on the murder itself and the detailed agony of the victim. In fact, the crime was disposed of rather quickly. The story was how the detective, through investigation and logic, revealed the murderer. There was no sex, no outright violence and certainly no sadism.
Somewhere along the line the detective novel evolved into the "thriller," in which the theme ranged far and wide. In most novels by James Patterson there is a pervasive vein of sadism, as there is in "Four Blind Mice." Ex-rangers from the U.S. Army, men who had fought in Viet Nam, continue their killing for hire and for pleasure in America. The sadism is very detailed and has nothing to do with the plot itself. For example, there is a lengthy and gruesome description of how the rangers tortured and killed a woman suspected of being Viet Cong. Perhaps it is to show that the men were not nice fellows, but the fact that they murdered people at all should establish that.
The detectives who trail the killers are bedroom hoppers, narrated with rather specific detail. Again, the sex has nothing to do with the plot, with tracking down the killers. One has to suspect that the sex is to titilate the sort of reader who can be titilated or manipulated by this.
The actual plot is not of much interest, nor is how the criminals were caught. What sells the Patterson books is the violence, the sadism, the sex--and short chapters for those with short attention spans. And because of this, I suspect the Patterson books will not be long remembered. Readers still read Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Philo Vance, etc., and they will be doing so when the Cross books are in the dustbin.
 Mystery July 3, 2007
Alex Cross the mystery solver. Great read. Fast moving and exciting. Never go wrong with James Patterson reading
 Good but not great: An audiobook review May 4, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
After reading a few reviews, it sounds like the audio version actually helps the story a bit. The two narrators are both quite good, with the exception that some of the bad guys sound too much like one another.
I am glad to get back to the world of Alex Cross. I have read or heard 3 other Patterson books this year and have been sorely disappointed with two. I only liked one (Jester) and I was looking forward to getting back to comfortable ground with Alex Cross.
The strength of Patterson's Cross books is the realistic conversations - the rhythms, cadences, colloquialisms and vocabulary sound right. They sound so right that I am reminded of a personal story. Way back before Patterson's picture was plastered all over the back of every one of his books, I used to work in a used book store. The Alex Cross books started filtering in and Mrs. Rivers, the assistant manager and an elderly African-American woman (also an avid mystery/thriller reader) placed Patterson's books in the African-American authors section. She was shocked when a book came in with his face on the back. She commented that she never would have believed that a white man could have pulled that off so well. He still pulls it off.
However, the story flows in a herky-jerky manner. Sampson and Cross gleen clues from things that should not provide clues. For example, while in Raleigh, NC investigating an old ritualistic multiple murder, they hear that a single prostitute was killed. No details are provided of the prostitute's murder, but still they know it is connected. How?
Patterson is intent on moving the personal lives of Cross and Sampson forward. That is appropriate. At times, though, it felt as if that was the only part of the story he really put a lot of thought into. The rest seemed to be rather sloppily tossed in there - the connections were loose, characters are introduced than dropped.
So, my grade: B-
Good conversation. Like the characters. My suggestion: Slow down "James Patterson, Inc." and take the time to work out some of the kinks and make these books better.
Good, but with some inconsistencies April 7, 2007
I picked this up at an airport before an international flight. I've read a few Patterson books recently. This was not quite as good as some of the others. Part of the problem might have been me reading them out of chronological order (this is another Alex Cross book). I didn't really care for the ending. There also seemed to be some technical and story inconsistencies.
Quantity has seriously eclipsed quality January 23, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
While I have read numerous books by James Patterson, only a few have been part of his "Alex Cross" series. The Cross books have a mechanical, mass-produced feel to them. However, with Patterson churning out something like 5-6 books a year, that's hardly a surprise. I don't mind someone being prolific, but it's almost gotten to where he should open up a chain of drive-through windows and donate a portion of his profits to re-seeding forests. We're getting true pulp fiction of the distinctly hastily-written-and-not-well-researched variety. There isn't nearly the attention to detail in these novels as in, say, a Michael Connelly crime thriller. There were also way too many implausibilities in this book for me to take it very seriously - even as fanciful entertainment.
The "four blind mice" in this book are three Army Rangers who served together in Vietnam (and a fourth 'mouse' that is revealed at the end of the book). Upon their return, the 3 continue to kill for both profit - as contract hit men - and fun (they're deranged "good 'ol boys" who truly get their kicks from killing even when no money is involved). But the amount of killing they do - and their complete lack of caution to keep from being caught - simply defies reason. These guys would have been caught within a week by even the most dysfunctional police force in the country. And they're supposed to be "professionals"? Uh, right.
A few examples:
1. They abduct a prostitute, let her out in the woods, and then "hunt her down" for sport before killing her. Just as they are about to start their hunt after releasing her, a police cruiser stops to ask the 3 men what they are doing on the side of the road with their lights off. They give an answer that satisfies the cop and he drives off. There is NO WAY that when the prostitute's body was later found, the cop wouldn't have tied it to the 3 guys on the side of the road and launched a major manhunt.
2. Another cop later pulls them over and they shoot him. Then, one of them gets in the car and simply drives it into the bushes on the side of the road to hide it. No attempt to even wear gloves before touching the inside of the cop car or the steering wheel.
3. The men go to a house full of call-girls and kill everyone inside. Again, no attempt to conceal fingerprints on doorknobs, clothes, furniture, etc.
Professional killers are simply not this cavalier when it comes to covering their tracks. With such huge deficiencies in the details, it was awfully hard to take Mr. Patterson's fiction seriously in this book. It was like these characters had been on one continuous joy ride / killing spree for the last 20 years without getting caught. With guys this back-slapping careless? I'm sorry, it just ain't gonna happen.
To be honest, there wasn't much here in the way of either mystery or thrill. In fact, the only real mystery is where Cross's long-distance romance with Jamilla is going to eventually end up.
Will I continue to read books by this author? Yes, but I won't generally expect too much from them - especially the crime thrillers. I enjoyed his recent books more in the genre of Nicholas Sparks better. One was called "Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas" and the other "Sam's Letters to Jennifer." Because they didn't rely on much of anything requiring research or technical detail - just books about human relationships - they were far better and far more plausible reads.
Patterson has the imagination to tell some very good stories. The problem is usually in the execution, not the story itself. I'm afraid quantity is definitely eclipsing quality as he attempts to churn out a book every few months. I'm not sure what's driving him to produce books like a machine gun - he's certainly made his millions with so many bestsellers and several movies. In fact, his books have grossed over $1 billion - so you do the math. It's astronomical even if he gets only 10% of that. One would think that as he near retirement age and with all his success, he'd take the advice that Nana constantly gives to Alex Cross in this book: slow down, don't work so much, and don't be so driven. I'd certainly like him to slow down enough to write better books.
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