[Alex Cross 04] • Cat & Mouse

In this New York Times bestseller, two killers-one operating in America, one in Europe-believe Alex Cross is the only worthy opponent in the deadly game each has planned.

Gary Soneji, a dying prison escapee, is looking for revenge on Cross, while another insane killer is pursued by Thomas Augustine Pierce-a brilliant and relentless detective who may even be better than Cross. As the bodies pile up, and Cross is nearly murdered in his own home, the game of cat and mouse leads to one final trap. . .

The body count is high, the tension the highest, and the two killers on the loose are watching every move their pursuers make. Who is the cat, and who is the mouse? What and where is the final trap? And who survives?

Amazon.com Review

That monstrous villain Gary Soneji is back in Cat Mouse, the fourth book in James Patterson's series about Alex Cross, a police forensic psychologist, but he's not alone. In seeming support of the premise that you can never have too much of a bad thing, Patterson has thrown a second serial killer into the mix: Mr. Smith, a mysterious killer terrorizing Europe while Soneji practices his own brand of evil along the Eastern Seaboard. With two killers to track, Cross has his hands full--and Patterson has another hit.

From Library Journal

Fans of Patterson's Alex Cross series will be delighted with this latest installment. Reappearing is Christine Johnson, seen in an earlier Cross novel, Jack Jill (LJ 8/96) and the principal at his children's school, and Cross has fallen in love with her. Gary Soneji, the creepy kidnapper and murderer from another Cross book, has broken out of jail and embarked on a new killing spree, again taunting Cross that he can't stop him. And one of his intended targets is Cross and his family. If that isn't enough, there's a new serial killer whose murders are so inhuman that the news media are suggesting that he's an alien from another planet. All story lines connect in this thriller, whose driving plot will distract you from thinking about its implausibilities and keep you turning pages to the last, when you'll find yourself impatiently awaiting the arrival of the next Cross novel. Recommended for public libraries.?Charles Michaud, Turner Free Lib., Randolph, Mass.Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

Archly improbable multiple psychokiller tale featuring Patterson's dignified Washington, D.C., detective, Alex Cross (Jack and Jill, 1996, etc.). Gary Soneji, the hyperactive bad boy who escaped from prison at the end of Along Came a Spider (1993), has AIDS. Before he dies (or even suffers any of the disease's ghastly symptoms), he wants to avenge himself on Cross, who helped capture him. After creeping into the Cross family cellar and ominously rifling the laundry, Soneji, who (we learn) developed a psychotic fixation with trains when he was denied a Lionel set as a child, departs on a series of cinematic massacres along Amtrak Metroliner stops, leaving drops of Cross's blood as clues. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, another psychokiller, calling himself Mr. Smith, is literally cutting a swath through Paris and London, pursued by the fanatically methodical, ponytailed FBI profiler Thomas Pierce. Cross doggedly pursues Soneji to New York, pausing between crime scene visits to romance recently widowed school principal Christine Johnson at the Rainbow Room. Patterson's soulless, breathlessly plotted exercise in bait-and-switch manipulation reaches the first of many false climaxes beneath Grand Central terminal, where Cross apparently kills Soneji. A few pages later, the widower Cross and his family are nearly murdered by a masked man claiming to be Soneji. Enter twitchy Thomas Pierce, who must make one too many references to the Twin Peaks TV show before revealing that he and Mr. Smith might be the same man. A bulky pack of unsolved plot puzzles and ludicrous butchery, ending in a shameless cliff-hanger. Having reached the peak of his popularity, Patterson is spinning his wheels. ($1,000,000 ad/promo; Literary Guild main selection; author tour) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Review

Cat Mouse ... may lack style but it has the raw (and bleeding) material for two thrillers. -- The New York Times Book Review, Marilyn Stasio

From the Back Cover

Two killers - one operating in America, one in Europe - believe Alex Cross is the only worthy opponent in the deadly game each has planned. And Alex must contend with something he hasn't known since the loss of his wife: he's falling deeply in love, and this romance will make him, and her, all the more vulnerable...

About the Author

James Patterson has had more New York Times bestsellers than any other writer, ever, according to Guinness World Records. Since his first novel won the Edgar Award in 1977 James Patterson's books have sold more than 300 million copies. He is the author of the Alex Cross novels, the most popular detective series of the past twenty-five years, including Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider. He writes full-time and lives in Florida with his family.