Someone has killed one of the most powerful men in the U.S. Senate- and the whole world is watching. Someone has murdered a small black girl on the mean streets of Washington - and no one seems to care. But only D.C. homicide cop Alex Cross suspects that the evil striking down both the high and the lowly wears the same shocking face. From James Patterson, the sensational author of the bestsellers Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider, comes Jack Jill, the #1 thriller that breaks all the rules - and shatters every nerve.
A child killer is stalking the inner city of Washington, D.C., his latest victim Shanelle Green, an adorable first grader from Sojourner Truth School. This killing is especially unsettling to Detective Alex Cross. Sojourner Truth is the school his son Damon attends, just four blocks from his home.
While the death of an inner-city black child doesn't garner much media attention, another murder is making big headlines. The same day that Shanelle was beaten to death, Senator Daniel Fitzpatrick was found handcuffed to a bed and shot execution style. The only clue the police have to go on is a bizarre rhyme, signed "Jack and Jill," promising more high-profile executions, ultimately targeting the president of the United States. When Cross is called in to help protect the president, he begins to suspect that the two cases are somehow related. As he races to put all the pieces together, the killers continue their bloody rampage, paralyzing the city.
Like Along Came a Spider and Cat & Mouse, Jack & Jill is a rapid-fire thriller from start to finish, with enough plot twists to satisfy even the most jaded mystery fan.
Patterson's most recent thriller, Hide and Seek, lacked his customary hero, Alex Cross, and didn't catch fire with readers. Here, Patterson brings back the black psychiatrist and Washington, D.C., homicide cop (Kiss the Girls, etc.) for a gripping game of death that will have fans flocking. Two simultaneous investigations bear down on Cross: the first concerns the killings perpetrated by a duo known as "Jack and Jill," who are murdering famous people (beginning with a U.S. senator) in Washington, taunting the police and "practicing for the big one"; the second involves the brutal slayings of young black children in Cross's own Southeast D.C. neighborhood. The Washington P.D. makes Cross its liaison with a frantic Secret Service, FBI and CIA while he sets up his own off-duty team to track the child-killer. Through crisp cross-cutting of multiple points of view, first-person and third, Patterson grabs readers right from the beginning and sweeps them along toward riveting dual climaxes. He adds texture by devoting space to Cross's concern about his own motherless son and daughter (the first murdered child attended the same grammar school as Alex's boy), his growing interest in the school's attractive principal, his dealings with his octogenarian grandmother, Nana Mama (think of an acerbic Dilsey from The Sound and the Fury) and life in the largely black Southeast district. It's fine, full-blooded entertainment from start to finish, with a last-page surprise from an earlier Cross nemesis promising at least one more Cross installment to come. Literary Guild main selection; simultaneous Time Warner AudioBook.
Patterson is back with another winner featuring black Washington, D.C. detective/ psychologist Alex Cross, who is hot on the trail of yet another serial killer. This time out, however, he's faced with double trouble in the form of a killing duo calling themselves Jack and Jill, who threaten to kill politicians and celebrities until they finally reach the president. After several spectacular murders, the police and the White House start to take them seriously. At the same time, yet another psychopath is brutally murdering black schoolchildren. Whew! All of this mayhem keeps Alex jumping and the pages turning. This entry follows Patterson's usual formula of very short chapters, breakneck pacing, and grisly murders followed by a truly surprising ending, complete with an appearance of Gary Soneji, the serial killer from Along Came a Spider (LJ 12/92). Highly recommended for all public libraries.
-?Rebecca House Stankowski, Purdue Univ. Calumet Lib., Hammond, Ind.
Patterson once again keeps the reader's stomach queasy in his latest graphic "nursery rhyme." Returning as protagonist is African American psychologist-turned-detective Alex Cross, who adores his two young kids and his wise, wisecracking grandmother--his source of stability since his wife died. Alex is troubled when a young child is murdered near the school his son attends and frightened when the murderer strikes again. On the other side of town, away from the scary inner-city D.C. streets, a pair of killers who call themselves Jack and Jill are terrorizing the movers and shakers by murdering a series of high-profile people. At each killing, Jack and Jill leave sick rhymes implying that a certain resident of Pennsylvania Avenue is the ultimate target. (It is no coincidence that the murdering duo's moniker is the Secret Service's code name for the president and the First Lady.) When Alex is summoned to help protect the president, who has made powerful enemies by rebuffing business-as-usual politics, Alex is torn between his duty to protect his deteriorating neighborhood and his duty to his country. He belongs with his family, he believes, but the "powers that be" know that he is a master at negotiating with serial killers. A fast-paced, electric story that is utterly believable.
Mary Frances Wilkens
Dual narrators and the clever use of sound effects such as gunshots and crowd noises contribute to this thriller featuring psychologist Alex Cross. Narrators John Rubenstein and Blair Underwood offer their own styles as the story unfolds through different points of view. Underwood perfects Alex Cross's deliberate nature with a steady performance and succeeds in building tension appropriately. Rubenstein's rendering of the killers is equally impressive, showing the aloofness of the almost inhuman sociopaths. Although the abridgment may cause listeners to feel they've missed some of the plot along the way, there is enough to tie everything together in the end. K.M.D.
Can D.C. deputy chief Alex Cross (Hide & Seek, 1995, etc.) stop a demented duo thinning the ranks of the Washington elite en route to assassinating the President? You just might be surprised at the answer. A serial killer (who seems to have sat through the film Network one time too many) is at work. The killer, a self-anointed patriot code-named ``Jack'' has, together with his partner ``Jill,'' organized a bloody vendetta that gives the phrase ``bleeding-heart liberals'' a more visceral meaning. The Secret Service, worried that the doggerel notes signed ``Jack and Jill'' left at each killing might refer to their own code names for President Thomas Byrnes and his First Lady, bring nonpareil cop Cross into the case to help protect the First Family. And you don't need Cross's experience to see that Jack and Jill are working their way up the liberal ladder to the Byrneses when a caller to the President identifies herself as Jill, that Jill, and asks if he's ready to die. But it may not be such a great idea to pull Cross off his present case, a series of child murders, since the killer, convinced that the cops don't care anything about a few dead black kids, begins to see himself in competition with Jack and Jill, and steps up his own campaign accordingly. Meanwhile, it's Cross, whose idea of sharp investigative work consists of flushing suspects into futile, cinematic chases, versus Jack and Jill, whose improbable identities will be swiftly, abundantly clear to most readers as they continue to run rings around the hapless FBI, the CIA, and the Secret Service, even from beyond the grave. Makes you wonder. The real surprise here, though, is the cavalier lack of closure to this paranoid fantasy, as if an Oliver Stone film ended without fingering the conspirators. Even Patterson's most ardent admirers should beware of this dog. (Literary Guild main selection; $650,000 ad/promo for Jack and Jill and Miracle on the 17th Green, a Nov. title to come; author tour; radio satellite tour)
In the middle of the night, a controversial U.S. senator is found murdered in bed in his Georgetown pied-a-terre. The police turn up only one clue: a mysterious rhyme signed "Jack and Jill" promising that this is just the beginning. Jack and Jill are out to get the rich and famous, and they will stop at nothing until their fiendish plan is carried out. Meanwhile, Washington, D. C., homicide detective Alex Cross is called to a murder scene only blocks from his house, far from the corridors of power where he spends his days. The victim: a beautiful little girl, savagely beaten--and desposited in front of the elementary school Cross's son, Damon, attends. Could there be a connection between the two murders? As Cross tries to put the pieces together, the killer- or killers - strike again. And again. No one in Washington is safe - not children, not politicians, not even the President of the United States. Only Alex Cross has the skills and the courage to crack the case-but will he discover the truth in time?
length: (cm)17.2 width:(cm)10.7
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如果从结构主义的角度来看待这部作品,我会说它在对“真相的碎片化呈现”方面做得极为出色。故事线索并非单线直下,而是像一个错综复杂的迷宫,充斥着虚假信息、被刻意隐藏的秘密,以及被主角们自己构建的谎言。作者巧妙地利用不同角色的主观视角来拼凑历史的真相,而读者则扮演了一个侦探的角色,必须不断地质疑所看到的一切。这种不确定性极大地增强了阅读的参与感和智力挑战性。我尤其喜欢那种在一个章节的结尾,突然抛出一个足以颠覆前文理解的关键信息点,让你不得不倒回去重新审视之前所有发生的事情。这种“迷雾重重”的设计,并非为了故弄玄虚,而是深刻地反映了生活中的信息不对称和认知偏差。它成功地将一个看似简单的冲突故事,提升到了对“何为真实”这一哲学命题的探讨层面。
评分这本书的叙事节奏简直是教科书级别的范本,作者对时间线的掌控出神入化。我几乎能感受到每一个场景的转换,那种流畅自然,仿佛我不是在阅读文字,而是在观看一场精心剪辑的电影。尤其是在描绘主角们在困境中挣扎和最终实现目标的那几个关键转折点,作者的处理方式极为细腻,毫不拖泥带水,却又保留了足够的情感张力,让读者在心潮澎湃中自然而然地被推向下一个高潮。我特别欣赏作者对于环境细节的捕捉,无论是那个古老小镇的潮湿空气,还是都市夜晚霓虹灯下的那种疏离感,都通过精准的词汇构建起来,极具代入感。这种对画面感的执着,使得故事中的人物行动和动机都显得格外真实可信,完全摆脱了许多小说中那种为了推动情节而生硬设置障碍的弊病。每一次阅读,我都会因为作者巧妙的布局而感到惊喜,他似乎总能在你预料之外的地方埋下伏笔,而当真相揭晓时,所有的线索又完美地汇聚在一起,形成一个完整而令人信服的闭环。这绝不是一部可以囫囵吞枣的作品,需要细细品味那些隐藏在字里行间对人性复杂性的深刻洞察。
评分这本书的语言风格,用“华丽”来形容可能都不够贴切,它更像是一种富有音乐性和节奏感的散文诗。我发现自己不止一次地停下来,仅仅是为了重读某一段落的措辞组合。作者似乎对词语的音韵和意境有着近乎偏执的追求,他能用一种非常规但又无比精准的方式来描述那些难以言喻的情绪,比如那种夹杂着怀旧与不安的“黄昏感”,或者“记忆如同被海水浸泡过的旧照片”这种富有画面冲击力的比喻。这种对文学性的极致追求,让阅读本身变成了一种美学体验。虽然我必须承认,对于某些追求直白叙事的读者来说,这种语言密度可能会稍显“厚重”,但对我而言,这正是其魅力所在。它迫使你放慢速度,去品味每一个动词和形容词带来的微妙的情感色彩。读完后,那种文字沉淀在脑海中的余韵,远比故事本身的情节更持久,它留下的是一种对于语言表达潜能的敬畏。
评分这部作品的社会批判力度,是它最让我印象深刻的一面。它并非那种高举大旗、口号式的批判,而是将尖锐的社会观察巧妙地编织进了日常生活的肌理之中。它不动声色地揭示了在特定社会结构下,个人追求自由和尊严所要付出的隐性代价。无论是对阶层固化带来的无力感,还是对主流叙事中被牺牲掉的那些无名之辈的描绘,都精准而有力。作者似乎对权力的运作机制有着深刻的理解,他没有将反派塑造成面目可憎的符号,而是展示了制度如何腐蚀人心,使原本善良的人也成为了体制的执行者和维护者。这种潜移默化的揭示,比直白的控诉更具穿透力,因为它让我们意识到,那些看似坚不可摧的社会藩篱,其实是由无数普通人的妥协和习惯性服从共同构建的。读完后,我感觉自己对周遭环境的观察变得更加敏锐和审慎,这是一种非常难得的阅读回馈。
评分我对主角群的塑造深感震撼,他们绝非传统意义上的“好人”或“坏人”,而是充满了矛盾和灰色地带的复杂个体。作者没有急于给任何角色贴上标签,而是通过大量的内心独白和极其真实的对话冲突,展现了他们在特定社会背景下的选择是如何被环境和过往经历所塑造的。我尤其关注那个配角,他初看似乎只是个推动情节的工具人,但随着故事的深入,你会发现他行为逻辑的连贯性和内在的痛苦,让人不禁反思我们对身边那些“边缘人物”的刻板印象是否过于草率。书中对于“信任”这一主题的探讨也极为深刻,它并非一蹴而就,而是经历了一次次试探、背叛和重建的过程,这种真实感让人在阅读过程中时常会为角色的每一次脆弱而感到揪心。这种对人性的细致剖析,使得即便是最夸张的情节发展,也因为角色的内在真实性而获得了合理的支撑。总而言之,这是一部关于“人之所以为人”的深度考察,阅读体验是既愉悦又略带沉重的。
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