Book Description

Who's afraid?

Alex Cross battles the most ruthless and powerful killer he has ever encountered — a predator known only as the Wolf.

Alex Cross's first case since joining the FBI has his new colleagues stymied. Across the country, men and women are being kidnapped in broad daylight and then disappearing completely. These people are not being taken for ransom, Alex realizes. They are being bought and sold. And it looks like a shadowy figure known as the Wolf — a master criminal who has brought a new reign of terror to organized crime — is behind this business in which ordinary men and women are sold as slaves.

You're afraid.

Even as he admires the FBI's vast resources, Alex grows impatient with the Bureau's clumsiness and caution when it is time to move. A lone wolf himself, he has to go out on his own in order to track the Wolf and try to rescue some of the victims while they are still alive.

As the case boils over, Alex is in hot water at home too. His ex-fiancée, Christine Johnson, comes back into his life — and not for the reasons Alex might have hoped.

Synopsis:

Alex Cross' family is in terrible danger--at the same time that his new job with the FBI brings him the scariest case of his career. A team of kidnappers has been snatching successful, upstanding men and women right before their families' eyes--possibly to sell them into slavery. Alex's knowledge of the D.C. streets, together with his unique insights into criminal psychology, make this mindbending case one that only he can solve--if he can just get his colleagues to set aside their staid and outdated methods. With unexpected twists and whiplash surprises, this is another brilliantly irresistible novel from America's bestselling suspense writer.

From Publishers Weekly

In a recent column in Entertainment Weekly, Stephen King cited Patterson's thrillers as the example of "dopey" bestsellers. We hope that doesn't mean that those who enjoy them are dopes, because this new one is vastly entertaining. Alex Cross, Patterson's black lawman hero, has left the D.C. police force for the FBI. But Cross was a star cop, so when the Bureau becomes aware that attractive white women are disappearing at an unusually high rate in the nation's capital, Cross, despite still being in training at Quantico, is brought onto the case and is personally mentored by the Bureau's director, earning the ire of some Feds but the support of others. Behind the disappearances is a sexual slavery operation run as a sideline by one of the more believable and most compellingly evil villains in the Patterson universe, the Wolf, a mysterious former KGB man who's now the world's top mobster. The narrative throughout is swift and varied, as Patterson cuts among the diabolical schemes of a Russian magnate who may be the Wolf, the plight of several kidnap victims, the dogged pursuit by Cross and company of the Wolf, and the hideous designs of the members of an encrypted computer chat room who pay the Wolf fortunes to snatch women who fit their fantasies. And there's domestic drama, too, as the mother of Cross's young son, Alex, decides that she wants her boy back. Full of plot surprises and featuring a balanced mix of intrigue, hard action and angst, the novel, on which Patterson notably does not share cover credit, grips from start to finish. The Alex Cross series remains Patterson's finest, and this is the finest Cross in years. Maybe we're dopes, but we're smiling ones.

From Booklist

Alex Cross finally took the plunge at the end of Four Blind Mice (2002) and joined the FBI. The training is a little beneath Cross, who has spent years working with the FBI on the toughest cases, but he dutifully attends classes until he's pulled out to consult on a case. Wealthy women have been disappearing around the country. The latest, a judge's wife, was snatched at a shopping mall. It appears these women (and soon several young men as well) are being abducted and sold to people who have "selected" them and paid a hefty sum. The man behind it all is a Russian known only as the Wolf. Cross gets a break when one of the buyers releases the woman he paid to have abducted, but when they track him down, they find he's committed suicide. Then a major bombshell in his personal life distracts Cross from the case: his ex-girlfriend Christine, the mother of his youngest son, has reappeared, and she wants custody. Cross' first major case with the FBI will have readers on the edge of their seats, swiftly turning the pages to the exciting showdown.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Kristine Huntley

From AudioFile

In the midst of his FBI training, former Police Detective Alex Cross is called in to investigate The Wolf, an ex-KGB agent turned master criminal, with links to the Russian Mafia, who uses the Internet to fulfill the fantasies of some of the sickest sociopaths in recent popular fiction. Each of these well-heeled villains pays megabucks to have his current obsession, male or female, stalked, kidnapped, and delivered--to him. As the complex plot unfolds, narrators Peter J. Fernandez and Denis O'Hare offer a variety of stunning characterizations. Alex has clarity and energy, The Wolf is vicious and sadistic, and the cyber-weirdos, particularly Mr. Potter and the Art Director, are despicable. Patterson's plot, rife with imprisonment, torture, rape, and murder, gives Fernandez and O'Hare plenty to sink their teeth into. S.J.H.

About Author

James Patterson's most recent major international bestseller is The Jester. He is the author of 20 books and lives in Florida and New York.

Book Dimension:

length: (cm)17.5 　　　 　　　　　 　 width:(cm)10.8