James Patterson books

The weather was definitely frightful this past week. The ice storm kept us home from school for 3 days and then 8 inches of snow kept me in the house for most of the weekend. It was a perfect time to catch up on some reading. In fact, the first day I didn't have electricity so there wasn't much else to do. Thankfully I had a gas fireplace to keep me warm and a kerosene lantern to read by. I curled up by the fire and read most of the day until the power came back on. I was one of the lucky ones who was only out of power for a day. I know that several places in town were out until Sunday--that made it almost an entire week without electricity. I would not have made a very good pioneer because I was pretty whiny after only a couple of hours without my modern conveniences.

I used this opportunity to catch up on the James Patterson books. I really enjoy his books. They are filled with suspense and keep me on the edge of my seat wondering what will happen next. I just finished Double Cross the latest book in Patterson's series about Alex Cross. Alex is a psychiatrist who works with the Washington D.C. police department and the FBI. He profiles serial killers. Double Cross is about a serial killer who they call the DC Audience Killer because he likes to kill in front of a audience. The first murder involved throwing a popular mystery writer off a balcony into a crowd of people. From there his murder become even more gruesome and more public. To make things worse, Kyle Craig who Alex Cross had put in prison in a previous book has escaped from prison and is seeking his revenge against Alex Cross and anyone else who had something to do in his capture. Each chapter has a new twist and turn.

Patterson isn't for everyone, but I really like his short chapters--usually only a couple of pages long. The books read quickly and like I said are filled with action and suspense. However, they also tend to be pretty graphic in their violence.

Another Vampire Book

Glass Houses by Rachel Caine is another vampire book. What makes this book different is that the vampires are not the good guys like all the other vampire books that are out right now. In Twilight by Stephenie Meyer, Edward, the vampire, is good looking, kind and nearly the perfect man and so many vampire books portray vampires in that manner. However, in Glass Houses which is the first book in The Morganville Vampires Series, the vampires are vicious and scary and not desirable at all!

Claire's parents send her to Texas Prairie University because they think that the town in small and the school is safe. Claire immediately gets on the wrong side of Monica, the leader of a gang of popular girls. They push Claire down the stairs and threaten to kill her. Claire is frightened and moves out of the dorm into the Glass House with three strange roommates: Eve a Goth girl, Michael who sleeps all day and Shane who left Morganville and returned under strange circumstances. From Eve and Shane, Claire learns that the town of Morganville is controlled by vampires and it is not safe to be out after dark. Somehow the Glass House has protective powers and they are safe inside. Claire with her talent of upsetting the wrong people has a vampire join Monica and her gang in threatening her and what happens is nonstop action as the reader discovers all the strange happenings in Morganville and the Glass House.

The downside of the book is that it is part of a series and although it solves the immediate problem, it ends in a place that makes you have to read the next book. We have three of the books in the series in the library.