Sunday, September 18, 2016

Review - Bullseye by James Patterson & Michael Ledwidge


Little, Brown, and Company; 369 pages; $28
James Patterson is one of the busiest authors as it seems like he has a new title out every few weeks, from kids books to adult thrillers. Plus, he just launched the new Bookshots novellas.

For the last few days, I've been reading Bullseye by James Patterson & Michael Ledwidge, which I believe is the 9th installment in the "Michael Bennett" series (minus the "Chase" novella). I hate to admit this, but I haven't read every book in the series, though I do own a copy of each book.

The series focuses on a NYC police detective named Michael "Mike" Bennett, who is always finding himself hunting down serial killers, assassins, and crazies. When Mike isn't chasing down criminals, he's trying to be a good father to his ten adopted kids! Yep, I said ten kids. His wife had died several years ago, so he relies on his elderly priest grandfather, Seamus, to help out with the kids from time to time. Then of course there is the nanny, Mary Catherine, who just happens to be Mike's girlfriend/significant other.

Bullseye opens up with Mike having to leave his family on a Saturday morning as a major international crises was in the making - a possible planned assassination attempt on newly inaugurated President of the United States, who is currently flying on Air Force One and will make a stop in New York City.

Why would someone want to harm the President?

Well, it happens to involve starting another Cold War with Russia.


Final Thoughts

The short prologue kicks off with plenty of action, so I was hoping Bullseye would be in par with the previous novel Alert. However, about midway through the novel started to miss it's mark, losing all suspense that had been building up. Changing the point-of-views every few chapters slowed down the pacing, which felt a bit odd to me.

I don't know anyone that is in the law enforcement, but I've watched enough Law & Order over the years to noticed several errors in the police procedure scenes of the novel. Also, something else that bothered was that the President was newly inaugurated, but the book is set near Thanksgiving. Presidents have always been inaugurated on January 20th, unless the day falls on Sunday, then it would occur the following day. I guess the President in this book could have taken office due to a premature end to of the previous one; though there is never any mentioned of it.

The villains are always one-dimensional in most of Mr. Patterson's thrillers, but the villains here are horrible cliched and just plain boring!

Overall, Bullseye was a disappointing read for me. The assassination plot was badly written, and it just didn't feel like a Michael Bennett novel. While I was reading it, I kept wondering if the plot was intended for another novel and that it might had been rewritten at a later date, which is when Mike Bennett replaced the original main character. 

Now don't get me wrong! Bullseye isn't a complete waste of time. I did like the little side-plot with Mike's oldest son, Brian, which is the only reason why I'm rating the book 3 out of 5 instead of giving it a 2 of 5 rating.



*I received a complimentary copy from the publisher for my honest review and they are 100% my own opinions. I received no other compensation for this review and I am not required to give a positive review. I am also not associated with the publisher or author in any way.

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