Lifeguard
by Andrew Gross, James Patterson
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Book Reviews of Lifeguard
Book Review: An under-developed, unlikely plot in this mediocre novel
Summary: 2 Stars
Ned Kelly is working as a lifeguard in Palm Beach, Florida. He meets up with Tess, the girl of his dreams, who is shortly thereafter murdered. The authors repeatedly point out that Ned has the name of a famous outlaw. Why? After a series of part-time jobs, he meets up with Mr. Sol Roth who offers him a job he could not refuse. This friendship seems highly unlikely; more based on Sol having a partner to play gin than an actual working relationship. Sol Roth, Tess, Champ, the Strattons, Ned's family back in Boston are all frustratingly underdeveloped characters. Ned is called to take part in an art heist with his old cronies from Boston. It goes horribly wrong and they end up killed with Ned as the suspect. Ellie Shurtleff, an FBI agent lets him go because she believes him. The police forces in Boston and Palm Beach are made to look inept. The hunt for Dr. Gachet and the name's significance is not well explained. Sol's explanation for his actions regarding the art world confounds an already lackluster, predictable ending.Book Review: Not sure what all the hype was about
Summary: 3 Stars
I thought Lifeguard was just okay. Patterson has done much better work. There were a lot of editing errors throughout the book, which was distracting and it takes away from the quality of the book. The plot of the art heist gone wrong is a unique one, which leaves the reader wanting to know whodunit, but that was it for me. I found it hard to get into at first, and then once I was into it, I thought it dragged in some areas. I prefer the Alex Cross series and the Women's Murder Club series. I have found that when Patterson deviates from those series, the result is hit or miss. The 2 exceptions are The Jester and Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas-both great books! One comment on another reviewer's remark about the accuracy of Ellie's John the Baptist reference. Perhaps the CD version worded it differently, but in the book, Ellie says she can shoot a disciple in the Last Supper painting. I don't recall a specific reference to John the Baptist.
Book Review: FBI Agents fall in love with serial killer suspects every day
Summary: 1 Stars
Listen up, everyone. FIVE STARS means a classic masterpiece: Catch-22, World According to Garp, Deliverance, Catcher in The Rye, Old Man and the Sea. LIKE THAT. Just LIKING a novel doesn't mean you give it five stars, okay?
I liked a couple of the early Alex Cross novels but this Lifeguard thing is absolutely absurd. I only read it because I'm interested in "Florida" novels but this one should have been set in California, it has no Florida quality at all. MOREOVER, the FBI vets their recruits a lot better than this. It's ludicrous. As for the people who are giving this commercial pablum five stars, they can't read many books. Try something by James Lee Burke or Henning Mankell if you want to read a really good crime novel, something by Carl Hiaasen or James W. Hall if you like a good Florida novel. Honestly, around the entire Amazon website I'm finding one thing. Write any piece of commercial garbage and someone will give it five stars.
Book Review: Good for Gross; Bad for Patterson
Summary: 3 Stars
It's hard to rate this as a Patterson novel. I wish he'd just take his name off the cover and present it as it is - a novel by Andrew Gross. There is nothing in this book that is the signature of Patterson except the choppy chapters. My boyfriend, a college professor, looked over and said "if my students handed in a paper with a font that big I'd fail them."
Don't chop chapters just to do it. There was one where it ended and the next chapter picked up right after the last sentence. Pretty ridiculous. It's like the typesetters were given an allotment of words per chapter and told to snip it after that number was reached.
Anyway, the book was good, but not Patterson good. Should I say "early Patterson" good. He hasn't been writing like his "Kiss the Girls" days in a while. I hope Andrew Gross knows that he's proven himself and can start publishing under his own name instead of riding on JP's coattails.
Book Review: Liked It, Get Past the Start
Summary: 4 Stars
This is not a James Patterson book, it is James Patterson with someone else and I had not read one of these before.
The first few pages had me thinking that I had made a mistake, I was pretty unhappy with the initial set up of Ned and his friend. The scene just felt very awkwardly written.
But I decided to continue anyway and pleased that I did because after the initial lull the book started rolling from the moment the heist goes bad and bodies start appearing. Not quite up to Patterson's other books and sometimes the characters seemed a bit TOO much, such as the rich art owner and the female agent sometimes seemed a bit unreal, but in the context of the story some of that is to be expected.
It ultimately winds up being an overall fun read. If you have not read any of his books before you probably would also like to look at ones such as Along Came A Spider to get a better sense of Patterson.