Book review: "Double Cross" by James Patterson

I picked up this novel for 33 pence in a church jumble sale. James Patterson is famous as being a writer with a voracious output, someone who has had nineteen consecutive best sellers in the New York Times list. As such I really wanted to read one of his novels, especially as his forte is crime, a genre that I love.

Double Cross features Alex Cross, a retired Washington DC detective / psychologist who has been the subject of many of Patterson's previous books. The author does a reasonable job of introducing Alex Cross to a new reader, despite the obvious history that has developed in the earlier books. However, this might perhaps be because Cross is an exceptionally one-dimensional character.

My first impressions were not good. Where most writers split the actions into scenes, and then aggregate scenes into chapters, Patterson just uses chapters. Hence the 437-page book has a remarkable 126 chapters, and  feels satisfyingly weighty in the hand. Unfortunately this effect is reached by leaving lots of white space - not just at the start and end of the many chapters, but half-line gaps between each line of text.

This can, of course, be excused if the reader wants a book that he or she can dip into or out of on a train or bus - the chapters make it easy to find where they were in the book, and the large font makes it easy to scan. Unfortunately it also makes it look as though it was printed for an eight-year old to read.

The book fails in both characterisation and plotting: Alex Cross comes across poorly; perhaps Patterson felt no need to give his character any depth because his readers already knew him. If this is the case, then making all the other characters flimsy and insubstantial as well was unforgivable.

However the plotting was far worse. The main plot features a killer who kills his victims in public, an interesting idea that, for the obvious reasons needs to be handled well. It is easy to write a story where the killer performs dastardly deeds in some darkened deserted den, but much harder to write a realistic one where the murders occur in front of hundreds of bystanders. Yet it is hard to believe that the killer would escape from each of the murders described within the book.

In one scene - sorry, chapter - he kills an actor in the middle of a packed-out play. The killer jumps up through a trapdoor in the stage wielding a gun and covers the actor in a  flammable gel before giving a soliloquy to the audience. Only then does he set fire to the actor and escape backstage. None of the audience, other actors or backstage workers tried in any way to stop him either committing the murder or escaping. I would think that even the presence of a gun would not stop the many people backstage from tackling the killer. The killer is shown planning the murder in detail, yet he leaves his escape to pure chance.

And this is just one of the problems. Frankly the reader does not so much require suspension of disbelief as to put their mind in neutral. Which is perhaps the primary purpose of the book: to entertain readers without them having to really think.

Reading Double Cross was a turgid, flacid and limp experience. Where good literature should stretch the reader's mind, this filled mine with anonymous gunk. It was the literary equivalent of watching the illegitimate love-child of Big Brother and Pop Idol.

I really want my 33 pence back.

Amazing...

hat-tip to my mate Neil:

This is an absolutely amazing video, an utter blast from the past. See how many of the old 8-bit games you recognise.

The only downside: There was no Elite. Then again, that had vector rather than pixel graphics...

"for sure"

I am a great Formula 1 fan. I try to watch - or at least listen - to all of the races. Whilst on the Coastwalk I could not get Radio 5 on my radio in time for a GP. I was going through woodland near Eilleen Donan castle, frustrated by tracks that were marked on the map but did not seem to exist on the ground. Fortunately I did have a mobile signal, and I phoned a friend to see who was doing what in the race, clasping the phone to my face as low branches assaulted me.

I am that sad.

One thing that infuriates me is the way that 'for sure' has seeped into the language of the sport. There can hardly be an interview in F1 where a driver or technician does not utter the two words. This has led to a rumour that there is a bet amongst the drivers/team principles/commentators about who can say it the most on broadcasts.

The problem is that I am hearing it everywhere. I was just listening to an interview with an American political commentator who said 'For sure, Mitt Romney is the front-runner...'. Other politicians have used to recently as well.

The phrase is essentially meaningless. If you say something, you should be sure about it. If you are not sure, you state your uncertainty.

It has got to the stage where I cringe when I hear it. For sure.

10 more walks on the website

I have been a rather busy bunny over the last month or so. These walks include some more of the Viking Way, a stroll through London, a group walk with some of my family and a brilliant few days on the North Norfolk Coast Path.

No.	Location	Distance (m)	Date Walked
904	A circular walk between Cromer and Sheringham	10.3	25/05/2011
903	Wells-next-the-Sea to Sheringham	19.8	24/05/2011
902	Hunstanton to Wells-next-the-Sea	23.8	23/05/2011
901	A circular walk between Fulletby and Donington on Bain	17.4	18/05/2011
900	A linear walk from Woodhall Spa to Fulletby and return	22.0	17/05/2011
899	Lincoln to Woodhall Spa	24.4	16/05/2011
898	Limehouse to Hayes	23.9	02/05/2011
897	A circular walk between Uttoxeter and Denstone	20.9	23/04/2011
896	Ancaster to Lincoln	20.6	19/04/2011
895	Bottesford to Ancaster	20.3	18/04/2011

Some brilliant walks and stunning weather. I think I am addicted to this walking lark...

Camping food

I have a serious problem with getting enough calories into me when I am on a trail. The reasons for this are as follows:

1) I lose my appetite when walking. I eat less after a walk than I do in a normal day; my appetite just disappears and I rarely feel hungry. This is noticed after single-day walks as well as during longer trips.
2) As I walk on my own, meals are not a social affair. This means that cooking can easily become a chore, especially during wet weather.
3) I generally try to walk too far each day, especially when wild camping. This means that I am tired when I reach camp, and often just want to curl up into my sleeping bag at the end of the day.

These combine to mean that I often do not cook meals whilst camping, especially in the mornings. A side effect is that I carry food and cooking gear for much further than is technically necessary.

Of course this is really bad. I lost about half a stone in weight whilst backpacking Offa's Dyke, weight which I could just about afford to lose. If I had spent another week walking then I expect I would have been in trouble.

Because of this I carry lots of home-made cakes, flapjacks and nuts and raisins, meaning that my diet becomes remarkably vegetarian when I am camping. These (albeit healthy) snacks allows me to nibble frequently, rather than have a full meal twice a day. I only eat meals when I either feel like cooking or pass pubs.

The strange thing is that I like cooking at home; I find it an enjoyable activity. Yet camp-cooking is far from enjoyable, even when I choose the food and ingredients with care.

When I was on the Coastwalk I found that the weight dropped off me for the first three months, remained static for the next six, and then increased for the last three despite an increasingly average daily mileage. At the end of the year I weighed only slightly less than when I had at the beginning. This is perhaps explained by the fact I had a professionally-trained cook travelling with me...

I am not sure that the solution is going to be for this. My rucksack is packed ready for another trip, but I have yet to put any food into it. I am making myself two promises for this trip:

1) that I will cook every night (unless I am very near a pub)
2) that instead of doing 20+ miles every day, I will limit myself to an average of 16. This will give me time to dawdle and perhaps even enjoy myself!

Alas these are promises that I will probably break.

John Demjanjuk

So John Demjanjuk has been found guilty of being a guard at Sobibor camp in Poland during World War II.

I must admit that this case makes me very uneasy. If he is guilty then he should rot in the lowest layers of hell. However, the way Demjanjuk has been prosecuted - and some may say persecuted - makes me extremely nervous.

For this is not the first time that he has been prosecuted. In 1988 he was convicted in Israel of being 'Ivan the Terrible', the hideous camp guard at Treblinka whose moniker scarcely did his crimes justice. Demjanjuk spent seven years in jail, five of which were on death row, and was only set free when his lawyers proved it was a case of mistaken identity. It was a hideous miscarriage of justice, especially as the evidence of his innocence was known (but not revealed) by American authorities before he was extradited to Israel.

He nearly went to his death.

Remember that hundred if not thousands of Germans were essentially let off terrible crimes during the chaos at the end of the war. (Sadly the same can be said of Japanese and, in more than a few cases, Allied troops). Their leaders and the worst offenders were justly prosecuted, but many others were not. Then there is the question of how liable an individual soldier is. How guilty were the East German border guards in Berlin when they shot at people trying to escape to the west? Will they similarly be prosecuted in another forty years' time?

As one Nazi expert said: "(Demjanjuk is)... the littlest of the little fishes".

As I see it, there are two main options:

• He was a guard at the camp, but did not worse than any of his colleagues who were not tried (and indeed, many far more senior and liable camp commanders were acquitted after the war).
• He was not a camp guard, and is guilty only of living longer than his compatriots, and of being the victim of a witch-hunt.

It is exceptionally hard to get justice after so many years; witnesses die, documents get lost and memories fade. Despite this it is clear that the evidence against Demjanjuk was incredibly thin. Add his history, and the mistaken belief that he was Ivan the Terrible (a belief that led to him receiving the death penalty), and it looks all too much like a witch hunt, the German judicial system's last throw of the dice to get justice for the millions who died in the camps.

But it probably helps the Germans that, as a Ukranian, Demjanjuk is a foreigner.

Terrible, hideous things happened in those camps. This prosecution does nothing to serve the cause of justice, and only the hideousness of revenge.

It leaves a nasty taste in my mouth.

Ouch, indeed.

Iain McClatchie's blog has a brilliant article on the effect of an asteroid strike on Earth. It is well worth a read, especially if you like being frightened.

And remember: this has happened before.