Review: Black Market by James Patterson

Title: Black Market
Author: James Patterson

Read copy: Mass Market Paperback
Published: July 3, 2006
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0007224885
ISBN-13: 9780007224883

The threat was absolute. At 5.05 p.p. Wall Street would be destroyed. No demands, no ransom, no negotiations. A multiple firebombing—orchestrated by a secret militia group—would wipe out the financial heart of America.

Faced with catastrophe on an unimaginable scale, Federal agent Archer Carroll and Wall Street lawyer Caitlin Dillon are pitched into a heart-stopping race against rime, tracking the unknown enemy through a maze of intrigue, rumour and betrayal towards a truly shocking climax.

My rating:

A story of deception, secret government sects, global terrorism, Vie-veteran guerrilla, bomb threats on Wall Street...set in the middle of Cold War.

Cut the length in half and you might get a decent thriller. But as it is, the pace was too slow, the twists and turns too convoluted, the characters were a bit too one-dimensional for my taste...I'm just not convinced.

Great premise, poor execution. Sad, but true.

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2 stars, fiction, James Patterson, suspense/mystery/adventure/thriller

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