Book 1 - Alex Cross

Along Came a Spider

(Alex Cross 1)

James Patterson

- 4.4 • 197 Ratings

- £4.99

- £4.99

SOON TO BE AN ORIGINAL AMAZON PRIME SERIES

The legendary thriller that launched the Alex Cross phenomenon

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Two children have been kidnapped from an elite private school in Washington DC, and Detective Alex Cross is charged with finding them.

The kidnapper's identity is quickly determined as one of the children's teachers. But capturing him is the true challenge.

As Cross gets pulled deeper into the strange world of the kidnapper, it becomes clear he is far more dangerous than anyone could have anticipated.
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Why readers love Alex Cross . . .
'There are so many twists and turns'
'First James Patterson book I've read - it won't be the last'
'Entertaining, intriguing and absolutely enthralling'
'Get to the book, sit down and enjoy'
'A gripping read'

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'No one gets this big without amazing natural storytelling talent - which is what Jim has, in spades. The Alex Cross series proves it.' LEE CHILD

'Alex Cross is a legend' HARLAN COBEN

'I wrote, "Along Came a Spider is the best thriller I've come across in many a year. It deserves to be this season's no. 1 bestseller and should instantly make James Patterson a household name." A household name, indeed.' NELSON DEMILLE

'Brilliantly terrifying! So exciting that I had to stay up all night to finish it! Packed with white-knuckle twists.' DAILY MAIL

'An incredibly suspenseful read with a one-of-a-kind villain who is as terrifying as he is intriguing.' CLIVE CUSSLER

'Terror and suspense that grab the reader and won't let go. Just try running away from this one.' ED MCBAIN

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 1 FEB 1993

This second big winter thriller by a writer named Patterson (see Fiction Forecasts, Oct. 19) features a villain (a multiple-personality serial killer/kidnapper) whom the publisher hopes will remind readers of Thomas Harris's Hannibal Lecter, and a hero who is compared to those of Jonathan Kellerman. Unfortunately, the novel has few merits of its own to set against those authors' works. Hero Alex Cross is in fact a black senior detective in Washington, D.C., who is also a psychiatrist and has a facile but not entirely convincing line of sentimental-cynical patter. The villain is Gary Soneji/Murphy (read Hyde/Jekyll), who kills for recognition, and finally kidnaps the kids of prominent parents. Alex is soon on the case, more enraged by Gary's killing of poor ghetto blacks than by the Lindbergh-inspired kidnapping, and becomes involved with a gorgeous, motorcycle-riding Secret Service supervisor who is not what she seems. Soneji/Murphy is eventually captured--but can the bad part of him be proven guilty? There is even a hint at the end that he may survive for a sequel, though the reader has virtually forgotten him by then. Spider reads fluently enough, but its action and characters seem to have come out of some movie-inspired never-never land. If a contemporary would-be nail-biter is to thrill as it should, it urgently needs stronger connections to reality than this book has. Come back, Thomas Harris! 150,000 first printing; Literary Guild main selection.

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