'Beach Road' is one of James Patterson's latest offerings (written in collaboration with Peter De Jonge) and like all of his novels it is a tense psychological thriller! Unlike many of his novels which tend to be part of a series (like the Alex Cross series and The Women's Muder Club) this novel is a 'one off' and as a consequence introduces a whole new batch of characters! It is actually quite unusual at the beginning because, a bit like a play, it introduces all the characters in order of appearance. More about these later but before that I will give a brief outline of the plot without giving anything away!
The novel is set in a very affluent area of the Hamptons in an area called Beach Road. Very near the beginning three young white men are murdered, execution style, in the grounds of one of The Beach Road homes. Before long, everyone is looking for the two main suspects, both young black
guys. However within a couple of weeks one of the boys is dead and the other has turned himself in declaring his innocence.
Local lawyer Tom Dunleavy is called upon to defend the accused and he soon join forces with his old flame and New York hot shot lawyer, Kate Costello. The start of the novel focuses on Tom and kate's search for a defence story and towards the end of the novel it all culminates in a gripping courtroom trial. There are many seedy characters introduced and many twists and turns as the novel gallops towards a quite thrilling and unexpected conclusion! In fact I have to say that I was quite shocked by one or two things at the end - there was one twist that I never suspected for a moment! I shan't say any more about that though - you will just have to read the book!
It is a great read though and I do think that James Patterson is a master of suspense writing. He always writes short pacy chapters that move the action on very quickly and almost leave you breathless. It is also quite a clever way of enabling the reader to read on. As the chapters are short (normally only about three or four pages - sometimes even less) it is very easy to think that you'll just read the next, and then the next, and so on... I am the sort of reader who does not like to put a book down mid chapter so if the chapters are overly long I won't start on the next one if I think I'm too tired to see it all the way through!
So with these short chapters, and the fact that I was drawn in and absorbed from virtually the first page, I actually read the entire book over four days - something which as a busy working mother of two small girls is virtually unheard of for me. I put this down mainly to the gripping story line - I just had to keep on reading to see what was going to happen next!
One aspect of the novel that I was not so keen on though, and which made it quite demanding on me as a reader, was the fact that the chapters kept being written from different characters' first person perspective. There might be a couple of chapters from Kate, then one or two from Tom, and these would be interspersed with about another eight characters' points of view! Even though under each chapter number there was the name of the teller, I did find this quite difficult, and had to keep reminding myself to check who was telling the story now!
There is an interesting set of characters in the book. The main two are the lawyers Kate and Tom, but there is also the accused young man, his very proud grandmother, a couple of cops and also a drug dealer. As you are reading you start to think that you have got the measure on all these characters, but as with any self respecting James Patterson novel, not everybody is who or what they seem. As with many suspense novels the character are more two dimensional because it is the action which is more important. However, the characters of Tom and Kate are quite well developed, and there is a nice little sideline as their old romance is rekindled!
Overall, if you like a bit of suspense, coupled with some gruesome murders and a good old fashioned cortroom drama thrown in for good measure, then this is probably just the book for you! It is a gripping, absorbing read and if you are anything like me you will be hooked from page one!
It is published by Hodder Headline, and my paperback copy, with just over four hundred pages, has a RRP of £6.99. Having said that though, I bought mine from Tesco for £3.73!
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Sep 21st, 2007
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