Annotation #1 - Suspense

Summary:

Along Came a Spider is the first title in James Patterson’s series starring detective and psychologist Alex Cross. Set in gritty Washington D.C., the novel begins with the double kidnapping of Maggie Rose, a famous actress’s daughter, and her friend Michael, the whiz-kid son of the Secretary of the Treasury. The villain is the children’s teacher, madman Gary Soneji who may or may not be suffering from split personality disorder. Brilliant but brooding, Cross still hasn’t gotten over his wife Maria’s senseless, unsolved murder. He becomes entangled in an ill-advised romance with Jezzie Flanagan, supervisor of the Secret Service. When Michael’s body is found, the stakes grow higher—can Cross find Maggie Rose alive?

Suspense Characteristics:

At first I wasn’t sure if this novel should be classified as thriller or suspense. The back of my copy calls Patterson “the world’s most popular thriller writer, with over 280 million copies of his books sold worldwide.” However, upon reading the book, I can safely say it fits our text’s definition of suspense. Characteristics include:

• Story takes place within a condensed time frame, with the danger made clear early on. At one point Cross mentions the crime took place two years ago, and I couldn't believe we'd jumped that far in time to the climax post-trial.
• A dark, menacing atmosphere with growing unease throughout. Cross frequently mentions that he lives in the seedier part of DC. He's always out carousing or canvasing the neighborhood around 10pm, and up at dawn to resume. The darkness is almost a character in and of itself, especially when we learn the villain was traumatized as a child by being forced to stay in a dark cellar for days on end.
• Action begins right away and builds towards a final confrontation between hero and villain. The first scene is unclear--is it a dream, is it reality? And after finishing the book, I still can't say for sure. However, there's nothing like a gunfight two blocks from the White House with two young hostages to keep your heart rate up at the end!
• Readers empathize with the protagonist, but often hear from the antagonist’s point of view as well.
  This book actually successfully switched between multiple points of view nearly every chapter. We got to hear from Cross the most, then Gary, and a bit of Maggie Rose and Jezzie for good measure.
• Gritty depictions of violence. Their are gruesome depictions of what Gary does to his victims, including what body parts he lets them keep and which he...doesn't. I'll leave it at that.

Suspense falls under the umbrella of Adrenaline, alongside Adventure and Thrillers. Readers enjoy fast-paced stories, well-crafted dangerous tone, insider details and jargon from professions like law enforcement, and characterization that allows them to build relationships as they follow a protagonist’s developmental arc throughout a series.

Read-a-likes:

• Continue with the next title in the Cross series, Kiss the Girls
• Try Patterson’s Women’s Murder Club series. The first book is called 1^st to Die
• For more graphic violence and ratcheting plots, try Karin Slaughter’s Blindsighted, the first in her Grant County series

My review: ★★★☆☆

I was pleasantly surprised that even though suspense is primarily concerned with tone and plot, and I typically enjoy writing that centers language and character development, I found little gems and turns of phrase in Patterson’s writing that impressed me. For example, Cross describes a cop’s face as “a birthday cake left out in the rain.” I was unaware before beginning the book that Cross is a black man. I was slightly uncomfortable that Patterson chose to write from a racial perspective that was not his own, but I didn’t notice anything too gratuitous—until (spoiler alert) Cross wakes up to see a burning cross on the lawn. I also don’t think a black man would realistically constantly remark about other people being black, but never say anything if someone is white. On the other hand, Patterson does a good job creating a frustrating tension between the media outrage following the kidnapping of two white children, while Cross rages about a string of unsolved murders in DC’s lower income neighborhoods that never make it into the papers. Overall, I enjoyed stretching my knowledge of a new-to-me genre, but I don’t think I’d reach for another Cross novel. The violence was a little too much for my overactive dream imagination. I do understand why Patterson is so successful! It’s a relief to know that “we don’t have to like what we suggest or what we read; however, we do need to recognize what readers love about books that don’t necessarily please us” (Saricks, 2016, p. 25). I think it will be important for me as a librarian to continue to push myself and explore popular genres and series even if I don’t think I’ll like them personally.

Resources:
Saricks, J. (2016). At leisure with joyce saricks: Sharing stories. Booklist, 22 (25). Retrieved from https://search-ebscohost-com.proxy.ulib.uits.iu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsglr&AN=edsgcl.460761629&site=eds-live

Wyatt, N. and Saricks, J. G. (2019). The reader’s advisory guide to genre fiction (3rd ed). Chicago, IL: ALA Editions.