Cross Review

So, here we are with another Alex Cross novel in paperback (the newest one is the recent hardcover, Double Cross).  Cross has resigned from the FBI and is returning to private practice.  This is due to his obsession in solving horrific cases and the risk and cost these cases have had on his family.  Cross is a widower (his wife, Maria, was shot by a sniper and died in Cross's arms at a local hospital) with three children to raise.  His grandmother, Nana, has gotten frustrated with his commitment to solving murders and the possibility of him being killed.

The novel opens with Cross seriously injured and being rushed to a hospital.  It then backtracks to a series of violent rapes occurring in the DC area.  Cross's long-time friend, DC homicide detective John Sampson, asks for Cross's help in solving the rapes, which turn out to be connected to a series of murders.  The rapist, a Mafia hitman known as the Butcher (named after how he disposes of victims using a scalpel), turns out to have a connection with the death of Cross's wife many years before.  In solving the rapes (and various murders), Cross pursues the Butcher, Michael Sullivan, with dogged determination as he is now convinced Sullivan murdered his wife.

As a side plot, Sullivan is also being pursued by the Mafia to silence and eliminate him as a loose cannon.  Sullivan is angry at this and takes revenge, gruesome revenge, on the Mob.  Eventually, all the plots collide in a frenzied shoot-out in which Cross is wounded, returning the reader to the opening scene.  An epilogue moves the story to a satisfying conclusion.

Okay, so did I like the book?  Yes, I did.  Patterson's novels, whether about Cross, the Women's Murder Club, or his other novels, are very easy and fast reads.  However, I am finding that as I read each novel, or at least the crime-oriented novels, that I smell quite a whiff of misogyny.  This bothers me.  I understand that most serial killers are male and that most victims are female, but the brutality the women in his books are subject to leads to a sense of distaste.  In some ways, I wish the novels weren't so violent towards women as I fear it might lead to a desensitization of violence towards women.  In a culture in which women are already the primary victims of rape, assault, and domestic violence, this cannot be healthy.  So what can I say?  I enjoy reading Patterson's novels.  I like the Alex Cross character immensely.  But...but there is a disquieting sense of moral outrage in how his victims, nearly all female, are treated.  There are strong female characters in these books, but other than Cross's grandmother, Nana, Cross doesn't seem to be able to develop a long-term relationship with them.  This is a frustrating point for me.