Customer Reviews

Violets Are Blue

5 star:		(43)
4 star:		(58)
3 star:		(58)
2 star:		(48)
1 star:		(84)

 

 

I gave it as a gift to my mom and have not read it yet, I am sure it will be a nail biter as they always are.

The "Mastermind" is one again the subject in Patterson's seventh Alex Cross thriller. This time Cross must investigate two different cases; one involving the Mastermind, and the other a case unlike anything Cross has ever seen, revolving around two young blond male vampire brothers. As usual, Cross's family and love life will take a backseat to his career, but not without a fight.

This is definitely one of the best Alex Cross novels to date, as the reader will learn the identity of the Mastermind long before Cross himself figures it out. Patterson has done it again with Violets are Blue.

I'm a huge James Patterson fan and there are only a few books of his that I have not read. After the incredible book "Roses Are Red" with its incredible twist ending, I could not WAIT for this book to come out and see how everything panned out. Naturally, I had this book within the first few days of its release.

It didn't take me long to read it. The vampire plot was somewhat interesting, but in general, not my realm of interest, so, for the most part, I shouldn't comment on that. I'd be too biased towards it, however, it wasn't bad. It was well written.

I personally was more interested in the Mastermind storyline continuing from "Roses Are Red." Obviously, the Mastermind continues to stalk Alex Cross and Alex continues to chase him until the final showdown.

As all fans of James Patterson's have, I have come to expect the unexpected in his novels. Complex and incredible plot twists.

This book however that every author, no matter how good, has a bad writing day some days. I mean, honestly, Alex Cross figured out who the bad guy was out of nowhere in this novel. He's sitting in his car, and out of nowhere, with no rhyme or reason, says to himeself, "Oh, it's this guy. He's the Mastermind."

Where did it come from? Nowhere.

And, I admit, at first I though it was great. But, the more I thought about it, it really disappointed me because that's not what I expect from an author of james Patterson's cailiber. He's so much better and could have given it a much better twist as to Alex's way of figuring it out.

My advice, take this one out of the library and save your money for a first edition copy of "Roses Are Red." It's so much more worth it.

I have almost read all of the Alex Cross books.So far none have let me down. When I started to read this book i was dissapointed because the first 100 pages were gory, grussome, and bad written. I mean how much can you describe. But as the book went on it got way better. It didn't focus as much on the murders and focused more on the investigation. Unlike the first half of the book. I also liked how Alex Cross was getting stalked while trying to solve the mystery. The twists were very good and when I finished the book I was barely breathing. So this instalment in the series was very good,but not for the faint of stomach or heart.

Looks like we are in for a series. The poem: Roses are red, Violets are blue, Sugar is sweet, And so are you. The first two verses are books. Looks like 2 more books before we find out the entire story. Sugar is sweet looks like it can play on what Sampson calls Alex Cross- "Sugar". Anyway, look forward to seeing how this plays out.

I've only read a handfull of James Patterson's books and have to say that none of them strike me as "can't put them" down reads. This one takes the cake though!!! What a waste of time....

"Eating at a diner in Woodland Hills, just off the 5 freeway"?
The 5 is nowhere near Woodland Hills. Try the 101. And stop making each chapter 6 pages long, and ending in a SHOCK. It reads like Nancy Drew.

What's with the trend for crime to occur in the most horrific ways possible? Here it's vampires. Add the poor writing and you're better off skipping this and reading anothr book.

I rarely write a review of a book I dislike, but if I can warn a single person away from this book, the effort will be worth it. "Violets Are Blue" was so predictable, so poorly written, and so shamelessly padded, I was almost laughing. I was reminded of the time in high school when I was given an assignment to write 2000 words about some topic, I can't remember what. Well, I wrote the paper, but when I counted the words, I was less than half way to the 2000 word total. So I spent hours adding in extraneous material any way I could to bloat the paper to the requisite length. Patterson has done the same thing to two (flimsy) mysteries stories and rolled them into one.

Both mysteries are so predictable that if you can't figure out the bad guy before detective Alex Cross does, you might think about switching to reading romance novels. One manhunt goes from city to city throughout the U.S. so that Patterson can add paragraphs of flimsy local color, including street directions to every scene, local restaurants (where I'm sure Patterson will dine for free from now on), etc. In neither mystery does Cross actually DETECT. The bad guy is simply the last suspect standing.

A shameless padder, Patterson gives a plot summary for every one of his previous books and phones all the (living) key characters from them. And every other chapter is a warm, touching slice of his family life. Which has nothing to do with the plot, but sets the reader up for the next book in the series.

I liked "Along Came A Spider". Since then, Patterson has obviously decided it's less work to be a hack than a good writer, and the pay is the same.

As opposite to many viewers, I actually find this entry a very enjoyable one. As a veteran fan of Alex Cross, and after reading more than once for each entry in the whole series, I must say that Violets Are Blue are quite unique in several ways.
First, the focus on vampire-like murders make me feel like reading a crossover with X-file/Buffy. Second, Cross and Jamila weres in many moments too close to Mastermind that you would really feel worry about them. Third, the ending is a real twist and it makes me unstoppable to turn the pages to know what will happen. Finally, this entry almost signify the end of Cross's life in Washington PD migrating to FBI.

Another good thing about Cross series is that, once you are hooked to them, the characters (Nana, Sampson, Christine, Jamila, ...... are just so real that they all like part of your life)