Triple Cross, James Patterson, author; Wayne Carr, Mela Lee, Inger Tudor, Kiff VandenHeuvel, narrators
In this thirtieth book of the Alex Cross series, the married couple, Detective Alex Cross and former Chief of Police, Bree Stone, find that the cases they are working on are also married, but it takes them a very long time to discover that fact.
Alex Cross and his partner, John Sampson, are investigating “The Family Man” murders. The serial killer has so far avoided capture, to the consternation of all those involved with the investigation. They keep hoping to find a clue that will identify the cold-blooded killer, but so far, there have been no major breaks in the case. There is a serial killer out there who breaks into homes and murders whole families, sometimes the children, parents and grandparents, for no apparent reason. The killer just seems to enjoy the savagery. Will they be able to find a clue to trap this murderer?
Elena Martin, CEO of the Bluestone Group, is Bree Stone’s boss. She asked Bree to investigate designer Frances Duchaine. She may be responsible for enticing young, vulnerable men and women to modeling careers, then encouraging them to engage in plastic surgery with false promises of lucrative jobs to come. When their debts piled up and no jobs were offered, they may have been “encouraged” further, to engage in sexual slavery, by this very same designer and her associates, in order to meet their obligations. An anonymous person had hired Martin’s firm and specifically requested Bree to be the investigator. The lawyer, that represented the client, demanded absolute secrecy in the investigation. As it proceeded, there were suddenly assassinations of people in the industry, and they occurred at the events Bree attended.
As both Bree and Alex searched for answers, bodies continued to pile up, but answers did not. An author Thomas Tull, became a suspect in Alex’s case. An editor, Suzanne Liu, spurned by him, came forward and accused him of committing the murders in his true crime books. At the same time, Bree and Detective Rosella Salazar are investigating the fashion designer and getting no real results either. Who was behind all of these reckless murders? What, if any, was the fashion industry’s possible connection to the family man murders?
Finally, a common denominator suddenly appears. A high-tech organization that is engaged by law enforcement as well as private companies, seems to be involved in both of these investigations. There is a company called Paladin that does data mining using artifical intelligence. Theresa May Alcott is the grandmother of one of Duchaine's victims, and she is also the aunt of the man who runs Paladin, Ryan Malcomb. Paladin has been used by Alex Cross in law enforcement and Frances Duchaine in the fashion industry is now involved with the firm in some way. Does something connect them all that is the key to solving the crimes?
At the same time as the mystery evolved, there were far too many tangents. Extraneous personal details of the Cross family were examined. They seemed a bit melodramatic and did nothing to add to the book. Jannie Cross’s athletic success was nice to know, but it went on for far too long and seemed to be included for the purpose of informing the reader that she chose Howard University to run track, rather than other highly prominent Universities that had also offered her a free ride. Nana Mama’s efforts and influence on the family was a nice warm touch, but unnecessary in this book. Ali’s eavesdropping had nothing to do with anything either. The involvement of the mob made the story a bit too complicated at times and a bit too obvious at others. There was just too much information included that was not pertinent to the investigations, and it clouded the picture being drawn, often making me lose interest. It was possible to ignore a good deal of the story and still not really miss a thing, like watching a soap opera whose characters move on so slowly, that even after time passes in real life, it hardly moves forward on the screen. By the time the book got around to revealing that the organization Paladin was working both sides of the street and was involved in both investigations, another reader might have given up.
Finally, at the end, when Ryan Malcomb, who supposedly had Muscular Dystrophy, miraculously gets up out of his wheelchair and walks away, after demanding all evidence be destroyed, the reader gets no closure. The only conclusion that can be drawn is that there is another book planned which will explore the connection of the unknown “M” or Maestro, to complete this thread. The head of the spider that called the shots, enabling the heinous crimes, seems to have remained at large.