REVIEW: Pop Goes the Weasel

Pop Goes the Weasel
Author: James Patterson

I started reading this series during The Great American Read. I was familiar with James Patterson, mostly because his name is splashed all over so many books as author, co-author, or whatever you want to call his publication style, but I had never actually read one of his books. I discovered quickly that I actually like Alex Cross, a Washington D.C. psychologist who becomes a detective. Cross investigates some gritty, hard-hitting cases. The series reads like a television thriller series or an over-the-top movie.....a cop soap opera. Devious serial killers. Crooks who keep popping up in Cross' life to cause damage. Bad cops. Thugs. And every time Cross gets a girlfriend bad things happen. Every. Time.

Despite the plots getting cheesy in places, I'm enjoying reading through this series. Pop Goes the Weasel gave me some trouble though, but not because of the plot, characters or writing. I actually had a hard time finding a copy of the book. I'm on a personal book buying ban at the moment (I own way too many physical books -- thousands of them -- so I'm not buying anything I'm only going to read once) so buying this book was not an option. My local library and its various branches do not own a physical copy of this book. So I turned to the digital offerings.....the ebook had a huge waiting list (Drat! People have discovered the joy of the library's digital site! lol). I finally checked out the audio book version only to discover it's abridged. Heavily abridged. The full audio book is almost 10 hours long. The version I listened to is only 5 1/2 hours long, which means they cut out half the story. Rather than wait weeks in a queue for the ebook....I chose to listen to the abridged story. I found it a bit annoying that they chose to leave in a steamy sex scene between Alex and his girlfriend Christine while obviously cutting out a lot of the meat of the story. Sigh. But....at least I can move on with the series now rather than sitting in a queue for a couple months waiting on an ebook.

Pop Goes the Weasel is the 5th book in the Alex Cross series. There are 26 books in the series, with a new book, Criss Cross, coming out in 2019. I have a lot of reading to do to catch up with this series....another reason I didn't want to wait for the library's ebook. This time, Cross is investigating a string of violent murders in D.C. They are calling the killer The Weasel. Just as Cross is narrowing in on a suspect, his girlfriend is kidnapped (Please stop dating, Cross....it never ever ends well!). Turns out this killer will be one of the most gruesome and diabolical criminals that Alex Cross will ever come across. And he's playing a game of life and death with Alex Cross.

I enjoyed this story.....well, I enjoyed the parts of this story I got to hear. This version is just too heavily abridged. The narrators give a great performance....the plot was interesting (despite the girlfriend in danger plot device coming up yet again...sigh) and the investigation filled with action and suspense. I'm going middle of the road with my rating on this one....just because half the story is missing. I'm confused why both libraries I use (my local and a nearby large metro library system) only have an abridged audio version of this book while the rest of the series is available unabridged? Frustrating! Especially when the after effects of this story continue through the rest of the series. Grumble, grumble.

On to the next book in the series -- Roses are Red.