Duncan Williamson: Book Review 3rd Degree pat2.html

In August 2001 I wrote, My first James Patterson book and probably my last at the start of my review of James Patterson's Pop goes the weasel. Well, I got 3rd Degree book for a penny so that's good enough value for a Yorkshireman!

I had forgotten my first Patterson review and what I said in it but it's spooky that at the beginning of this book I felt liking putting it back on the shelf. I though it was far too patchy with a story that just wasn't flowing. After a while I overcame that feeling and the book turned out well enough in the end.

The central character is a policewoman in San Francisco and the book opens with her rescuing a young child from a bombed out house: this is the start of the story since the bombing of that house leads on to other deaths, the death of a dear friend, sex between herself and someone who is able to conjour up a private jet at the drop of a hat and an ending in which they all lived happily ever after.

The central story line really is credible: militants against capitalism who are not content with just sitting around and waiting for the world to come to its senses. Militants who may be under the influence of a Svengali figure and who are prepared to die for their cause.

Our heroine is made of stern stuff and she is dogged: until the man with the private jet turns up and then she just melts. Well, you would wouldn't you? Such things don't happen to all of us do they? Anyway, she moves the story on very nicely and we meet some dreadful people and have to endure some terrible situations.

There are characters for whom we feel sympathy who are victims of circumstances and know it but can't do anything about it. Then there are the characters who are victims but who are completely unaware of it: the militants who are making the bombs, who are leading the revolutions. Their strings are being pulled yet they believe they are in control. Sad but true and death is not a stranger to many of them.

Just like the other three books I have reviewed today (Are you Afraid of the Dark?, The Increment and Deception Point), a lot of hearts pound, thump and beat strongly in this book ... it seems that there is an international agreement that all books' characters have to have pounding hearts at least once every ten pages.

I think one of the reasons why this book wouldn't flow initially is that many of the chapters are just two or three pages long: there are 111 chapters altogether and the book is just 278 small pages long. At least it gives the reader a sense of achievement that the chapters are flying by but these changes can break up the story a bit much, as I found early on.

In the end, not the best book I have ever read but clearly btter than Pop goes the weasel!