POSTCARD KILLERS

TITLE: POSTCARD KILLERS
AUTHOR: JAMES PATTERSON & LIZA MARKLUND
Pages: 420
Date: 12/11/2010
Grade: 4+
Library

NYPD detective Jacob Kanon is a desperate man, travelling through Europe following a trail of horrific murders.
His quest started after Jacob's daughter, Kimmy and her fiance, were murdered in their hotel room in Rome. After that, young couples have been killed in various European cities. There is no obvious link between the murders except that each murder was preceded by a postcard, send to a local reporter.
In Stockholm, Swedish reporter Dessie receives an anonymous postcard, and soon finds herself, against her better judgment, teamed up with Jacob in an attempt to find the killers, proof their guilt and stop them.
But, the murderers have a few tricks and surprised of their own up their sleeves, and just when it seems that the case is closed they give it a whole new twist.
What can I say about James Patterson? His stories are by this stage so predictable as to seem formulaic. And in many ways the same is true here. Extremely brutal murders, committed by clever, elusive and not entirely sane murderers, all leading to a high voltage conclusion.
But, because this story was set outside the USA and co-authored by a Swedish writer, this book did distinguish itself from other recent Patterson books, be it only in subtle ways.
The contrast of a New York cop having to cope with European police procedures was good and added an extra edge to the story. However, as always Patterson's characters are quite two dimensional and there's never any doubt that these stories are about the action far more than the people.
I recently bought "Red Wolf" by Liza Marklund and haven't read it yet. I think I'll be picking it up fairly soon though because now I'm curious to find out what her writing is like when it's all her own.