My review will be interesting since I picked up the book not knowing it was #9 in a series.. the story is interesting but I felt like a lot of important progress happened outside of the readers awareness which makes it hard to connect with the plot. Some parts felt very rushed and the ending was rushed as well. It did make me interested in the other books in the series though.

Patterson did a wonderful job with this Alex Cross book. I have not always liked Patterson's books but this one was a real page turner for me. While I found it upsetting because of the kidnapped women, I did not want to put it down.

After reading it again almost a decade later, I still feel the same way about it.

Another Alex Cross book. I wish I would have started them in order but my library only had a few on cd and I was getting them to listen to them in my car. So I have jumped around a bit and there are things I know about that when I read some of them, it hasn't been presented in the prior books. I like the Alex Cross series but I wish they all had the same narrator because the characters all have different voices and when I get used to one, another one comes by. This is a typical murder mystery with Alex being involved even though he is not normally in that part of the country. Some people resent him but he has a great mind for the killers that others don't.

This one was good, but it wasn't my favorite. It took me longer to finish then I like. Mostly because it didn't hold my attention as well as the previous in the series. It was a little predictable about the Wolf. I know there are always books in a series that will not be as big a hit with a reader, this one was mine. I felt it went a little long and didn't find myself captured by the story. Still had a good story but not what I was expecting. The antagonist was a little overdone. I am on to the next in the series.

One of the better installments of the Alex Cross series. Maybe because it was a bit extra dark and twisted and was a bit of a cliffhanger so it makes me want to jump right into the next one.
I am starting to like Alex Cross more and more which took me longer than the Michael Bennett series. Good Read!

When I was 16, I absolutely loved James Patterson. I went back and re-visited and discovered that you don't like everything you liked in high school. This is another addition to the Alex Cross series. Alex is an investigator who has been instrumental in bringing down several serial killers. He's just started with the FBI.

At the same time, women are being abducted by an organization run by "the Wolf". These women have been purchased to become sex slaves to wealthy men with specific tastes. After a judge's wife is taken, the FBI is called in.

I read this book hoping for a murder mystery...or a kidnap mystery. But it wasn't. The FBI is searching for the identity of the Wolf, but you don't get a chance to meet several potential people and try to figure it out for yourself.

Part of the story is how Alex Cross is trying to balance his professional and personal life. However, you don't get much resolution. Alex spends a lot of time having angst, but there's not a lot of explanation. He has 2-3 conversations with his girlfriend who lives across the nation. You don't know WHY she lives across the nation or how they met. And he misses her when they're on the phone together, but he never seems to think about her otherwise.

I just found this book very unsatisfying.

Read this while in highschool. I remember it being quite suspenseful

Dear Mr. Patterson

While this book was an easy read, I must say that it must have been easy to write because you have done this 19 or so times before. This book was predictable up until the end. I do not appreciate the ending hanging there so that people will buy the next book to find out what happens. Sorry but that ploy will not work with me. I will not buy the next book. This cheap ploy to get me to buy book number 20 will not work. It wasn't even that good. And talk about drama, seriously you could write romance novels or for soap operas.

Sorry if these words offend, but I can't understand why you are a best selling author. Unless you were only best selling for your first novel

Laura

PS the only reason I read this one was because my mother sent it to me and it looked interesting. However, it will go where the other books she sent me will go, in the free bin in my condo's lobby.

I haphazardly discovered Patterson's, Alex Cross, when I grabbed a worn paperback, Violets Are Blue, off of an overstock rack in a used bookstore. I had no idea that I had chosen a book that was the 7th in a series of at least 17. After devouring my first Patterson novel, and falling head over heels in love with John Sampson, Cross' best friend and partner, as well as becoming quite smitten with Cross, I knew that I needed to start at Alex's beginning and go through the entire series.

The Big Bad Wolf is the 9th book featuring Alex Cross. This story takes our street-smart, tough-as-nails, DC cop and puts him in the FBI. The differences highlighted between local and federal law enforcement were very intriguing; particularly when coupled with the Russian Mafia. I enjoyed the story-line; but I LOVE the cliff-hanger ending. I must get London Bridges now.

Very good read very suspensible

Alex has moved from the DC Met. Police to the FBI. The first case he is involved with, during his training, is one of sexual slavery--both men and women.
A shadowy figure, called the Wolf, operates a international ring of operative that kidnap hand picked victims, and sells them to his clients.
Alex does not catch the Wolf, in this novel, but kills or arrests many of his operatives.

Some interesting developments in Alex's life: The mother of his 3rd child wants to claim custody after abandoning Alex and Child at birth; his current love interest from SFran flies into DC at the end of the novel; the struggle between the Met Police and FBI seems a constant theme in this series, and parallels the tribalism we suddenly are seeing all around us in our political lives.

Read many years ago