This week I read...

Rating : C+

I'm way behind on my James Patterson reading. His best efforts involve serial killers and the homicide detective Alex Cross. Unfortunately, Black Market has neither. Wall Street gets blown up, and we spend most of the first half of the book going on wild goose chases. Finally, the story begins to move, and there are a couple nice Dan Brown-esque twists in the latter stages. Still, one yearns for a deranged psychotic killer to show up and slash someone to pieces - anyone - just to spice things up. What is eerie about this book, however, is the way it foreshadows September 11. Black Market first came out in 1986, and if you substitute the Twin Towers for Wall Street, you get a scenario with uncanny similarities. Perhaps in 500 years, someone will decide that Patterson was a 20th-Century Nostredamus. All-in-all, it's a decent story, but its never gonna be your favorite Patterson book.