Book #45 for 2024: Escape by James Patterson and David Ellis
Escape by James Patterson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was a book that I just borrowed, but turns out its the third in a series featuring the character Billy Harney, a Chicago Police Detective. I'd have probably benefited by reading from the start to get a handle on who all the characters are, and the continuing plotline that is hinted at in the final chapter.
The beginning is explosive, killing off a character who I assume had a major role in the previous titles. The main premise is quite a simple one, in that five teenage girls have been kidnapped, and Billy is searching for the fifth girl, and also the man who kidnapped her, and killed his friend.
The style is similar to many other James Patterson novels I've read, in that it switches between third person narrative and first person narrative, this time from Harney, but for once this didn't distract too much from the storyline.
It's one of those books where the plot branches off in a lot of directions, and there are a lot of red herrings, so I struggled at times to keep up, but I got more engaged as all of the loose plot threads dovetailed into each other. There was an exciting climax and a twist that I did not expect, but which showed that James Patterson had been doing his homework.
I'm not sure if I'd invest my time to read the full series, but I might go back and start from the beginning some day.
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