Honeymoon/Patterson & Roughan

I try not to say too many negative things about other authors’ work. For one thing, I know what a tough business this is, even for those who are successful, and for another, if you’re talking about an author who is a lot more successful than you are, anything bad you say will be construed as sour grapes by some people. However, in the past I’ve been known to make the occasional snarky comment about James Patterson’s books. I feel bad about it, but I do it anyway.

I have to admit, though, that Patterson’s success interests me. There’s something in his work that appeals to vast numbers of people, and I’d like to know what it is. Accordingly, I’ve started reading at least half a dozen of his books over the years, only to not finish them because I just didn’t like them. But to my surprise, the one book of his I did finish, the historical nover THE JESTER (co-written with Andrew Gross), I really liked and thought it was one of the best books I read that year.

Now I’ve finished another Patterson novel, HONEYMOON, published earlier this year and co-written with Howard Roughan. It’s a serial killer novel, a sub-genre that Patterson seems to like, and it’s pretty good. There are some flaws – the writing is pretty flat and purely functional, and the characterization is awfully shallow – but the plot has some nice twists and the pace is very fast and generates enough suspense that I was really flipping the pages in some scenes to find out what was going to happen. That’s good storytelling.

Bill Parcells is fond of saying about football teams, “You are what you are.” Patterson’s books are what they are, I guess. He does things I don’t like – the extremely short chapters and the mixture of first and third person – but if I just accept that that’s the way they’re going to be and try to judge them on their own merits, maybe they’re better than I thought they were. I’m sure I’ll continue trying to read one every now and then, just to see.