Private: #1 Suspect by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro

          Jack Morgan #2

          I actually read the third book in this series, Private Games,  before I read this one. They have little in common except both offices are owned by Jack Morgan and are part of his investigation and security business, Private. That being said, both are pretty good books.

          This story centers on Jack Morgan himself. Jack strikes me as real dog with little impulse control. He sleeps with lots of women, and breaks their hearts, albeit unintentionally. That probably appeals more to male readers than it did to me. He doesn’t seem to have had a particularly easy youth, but he has managed to make a success of himself and the business his father left him.

          The story begins with Jack returning home from a grueling overseas trip, dropping his bags in the entry and heading straight for a shower. Upon getting out of the shower and heading entering his bedroom, he is met with the nasty sight of a former lover shot dead in the middle of his bed.

          Naturally, the police believe Jack is the murderer. He is arrested for the crime. And the police are simply uninterested in digging any deeper. The frame the real murderer cobbled together has Jack well and truly surrounded.

          But Jack has the resources of his company and his staff to delve into the details more deeply. They all work tirelessly to prove Jack did not perpetrate this crime.

          I got the feeling this book was directed more at a male audience, but it was engaging and enjoyable. I don’t think this is a series I will my to-be-read list, but you may want to add it to yours.

         

Private Games by James Patterson and Mark Sullivan

               Jack Morgan #3

               I have not read the previous two books in this series, but Private: #1 Suspect, the first book in the series is on my to-be-read list. A bit of research tells me that the first two books are set in LA, and have a slightly different set of characters. So I’ll give it a try, based on how well I enjoyed this book, and see how it goes. 

               The story here takes place in the near future, just before and during the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London.  It was kind of odd hearing future dates for next month!  I listened to this one on audio book, and enjoyed it.  Techno-thrillers and sports stories are not generally my favorites, but this one wasn’t bad.

               We had a nut job and his three handmaidens from hell bent on creating chaos at the Olympic Games.  Patterson and Sullivan did a nice job of making them creepy and twisted. And, I felt badly for the folks they threw into the path of the Private investigators to mislead the investigation.  And, of course, the 3-year-old twins of the main character were a hoot.  God forbid I should ever run into kids that bratty, but it makes for entertaining reading.

               I was a little taken aback by the brutality and gore of the initial scenes at the beginning of the book, but the first murder was by far the nastiest and while the assorted nut jobs remained evil and destructive, the level of nastiness went way down after the first chapter or so.

               I probably will have no desire to reread this book, but it was pretty entertaining, and I’ll gladly check out the beginning of the series. This is a book I’m sure my husband would really enjoy.