Entertainment Weekly
Popular murder detective Alex Cross (Kiss the Girls) returns to the D.C. streets to solve two seemingly unrelated homicides.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In the middle of the night, a controversial U.S. senator is found murdered in bed in his Georgetown pied-a-terre. The police turn up only one clue: a mysterious rhyme signed "Jack and Jill" promising that this is just the beginning. Jack and Jill are out to get the rich and famous, and they will stop at nothing until their fiendish plan is carried out. Meanwhile, Washington, D.C., homicide detective Alex Cross is called to a murder scene only blocks from his house, far from the corridors of power where he spends his days. The victim: a beautiful little girl, savagely beaten - and deposited in front of the elementary school Cross's son, Damon, attends. Could there be a connection between the two murders? As Cross tries to put the pieces together, the killer - or killers - strike again. And again. No one in Washington is safe - not children, not politicians, not even the President of the United States. Only Alex Cross has the skills and the courage to crack the case - but will he discover the truth in time?

FROM THE CRITICS

BookList - Mary Frances Wilkens

Patterson once again keeps the reader's stomach queasy in his latest graphic "nursery rhyme." Returning as protagonist is African American psychologist-turned-detective Alex Cross, who adores his two young kids and his wise, wisecracking grandmother--his source of stability since his wife died. Alex is troubled when a young child is murdered near the school his son attends and frightened when the murderer strikes again. On the other side of town, away from the scary inner-city D.C. streets, a pair of killers who call themselves Jack and Jill are terrorizing the movers and shakers by murdering a series of high-profile people. At each killing, Jack and Jill leave sick rhymes implying that a certain resident of Pennsylvania Avenue is the ultimate target. (It is no coincidence that the murdering duo's moniker is the Secret Service's code name for the president and the First Lady.) When Alex is summoned to help protect the president, who has made powerful enemies by rebuffing business-as-usual politics, Alex is torn between his duty to protect his deteriorating neighborhood and his duty to his country. He belongs with his family, he believes, but the "powers that be" know that he is a master at negotiating with serial killers. A fast-paced, electric story that is utterly believable.

Dallas Morning News

Cross, a brilliant homicide cop, is one of the great creations of thriller fiction.

San Franciso Chronicle

The pages turn rapidly, and Patterson juggles twist after twist with genuine glee.

Kirkus Reviews

Can D.C. deputy chief Alex Cross (Hide & Seek, 1995, etc.) stop a demented duo thinning the ranks of the Washington elite en route to assassinating the President? You just might be surprised at the answer.

A serial killer (who seems to have sat through the film Network one time too many) is at work. The killer, a self-anointed patriot code-named "Jack" has, together with his partner "Jill," organized a bloody vendetta that gives the phrase "bleeding-heart liberals" a more visceral meaning. The Secret Service, worried that the doggerel notes signed "Jack and Jill" left at each killing might refer to their own code names for President Thomas Byrnes and his First Lady, bring nonpareil cop Cross into the case to help protect the First Family. And you don't need Cross's experience to see that Jack and Jill are working their way up the liberal ladder to the Byrneses when a caller to the President identifies herself as Jill, that Jill, and asks if he's ready to die. But it may not be such a great idea to pull Cross off his present case, a series of child murders, since the killer, convinced that the cops don't care anything about a few dead black kids, begins to see himself in competition with Jack and Jill, and steps up his own campaign accordingly. Meanwhile, it's Cross, whose idea of sharp investigative work consists of flushing suspects into futile, cinematic chases, versus Jack and Jill, whose improbable identities will be swiftly, abundantly clear to most readers as they continue to run rings around the hapless FBI, the CIA, and the Secret Service, even from beyond the grave. Makes you wonder.

The real surprise here, though, is the cavalier lack of closure to this paranoid fantasy, as if an Oliver Stone film ended without fingering the conspirators. Even Patterson's most ardent admirers should beware of this dog.

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