A very easy read with some chapters only one page! I haven't read any James Patterson for a long time, seeing the rate he, and his fellow writers, churn them out it's hard to keep up! But I will read more of this series as the detective is very different from the norm.

So everyone but me loves James Patterson. So every once in a while I think to myself: "Self, you should try another one." And then I do. And then I give it 2 stars to remind myself that although he is a great plotter, the books are inevitably so badly written that it is doubly disappointing: why does he waste interesting ideas on these writers?

The set-up was contrived, but I loved the St. Pats setting and the parts about the hostages/ terrorists was interesting. The parts about the Detective and his family were maudlin (even I didn't get teary -- and I cry at *everything*). When the head terrorist was finally unmasked I had trouble even remembering who he was in the story.

4 star idea. 1 star execution.

Entertaining.