With an emphasis on rapid-fire action, little time is devoted to character development. The villains playing opposite Alex Cross are not your common everyday garden-variety criminals. They are evil through and through with a proclivity for sociopathic sexual perversions. Cross, of course, is his complete opposite. He s loving, compassionate, a model father, a loyal friend, and dedicated to justice and equality.
Secondary characters are little more than roughly sketched in.
Patterson attracts readers with his fast-moving stories. From the opening scene, the narrative grabs the reader and rolls on. Utilizing very short chapters, the author doesn t focus long on any individual character or any single incident. Since the reader knows the identity of the killer from the beginning, the suspense depends not on figuring out whodunit but on how he s going to be caught.