A Really Meaningful Message Scribbled On A Goddamn Postcard of the Brooklyn Bridge

Ugh. The Michael Bennett series.  This has some of the best villains in the Patterson franchises.  I’m talking nursery rhymes Alex Cross here.  And this one’s particularly juicy — even when the scheme goes to cartoonish proportions.  The action’s great, the mystery intense.  It’s just, they steep this series in so much rah-rah Irish Catholic, rah-rah NEWYAWK.  It gets painfully saccharine, and painfully…can you get jingoistic for a city? Because yeah, this one is so far up the Statue of Liberty’s ass, he can smell the French food they fed her.