Saturday, October 19, 2024

Hard to Kill

Title: Hard to Kill
Author: James Patterson, Mike Lupica
Published: July 29, 2024 by Little, Brown and Company
Format: Hardcover,page 384 Pages
Genre: Legal Thriller
Series: Jane Smith #2

First Sentence: Jimmy Cunniff calls to tell me to get dressed we’re taking a ride.

Blurb: Attorney Jane Smith is mounting an impossible criminal defense.

Her client, Rob Jacobson, is the unluckiest of the unlucky. No sooner is he accused of killing a family of three in the Hamptons than a second family is gunned down.

It’s not double jeopardy. It’s not double murder. It’s double triple homicide.

Jane’s career has spanned from NYPD beat cop to Hamptons courtroom. She’s tough to beat. She’s even tougher to kill.

My Opinion: Reading this book felt like a never-ending journey without a clear point.

The storyline meandered through a series of crimes without offering more than housecleaning. From the start, the narrative is filled with monotony – the crime that kicks the book off, cancer, more death, more cancer, more death. Then, the last chapter of Oh, look, the person behind it all.

A key point for readers is that the first and second books in this series are direct continuations of one another and should ideally be read back-to-back due to their tight narrative connection. The year-long gap between publications only adds to the confusion.

I also struggled to distinguish this series from James Comey’s Nora Carlton series. Since both narratives are similar, keeping them separate was challenging.

Hard to Kill reminded me of when you flip through a magazine, eager to skip the ads and get to the content. Instead, it meandered through detailed descriptions of New York locations, name-dropping brands, and venues, while the plot remained thin and vague. The numerous characters and their intricate connections became overwhelming, almost requiring a notebook to keep track.

This book reads more like a filler than a gripping thriller. Patterson originally intended the series to be a trilogy but vaguely promised the continuation of the series if the sales remained high. Unless book three comes out of the gates strong, I can’t see a need to go much further.

Ultimately, Hard to Kill fell short of its potential. The constant diversions and fillers made it a tedious read rather than engaging with a compelling story. Given the rambling nature and overwhelming cast of characters, I’d recommend giving this one a pass.

No comments: