Maybe I was having a bad day, or week--I don't know.  All I can say is I thought this book was TERRIBLE.  I really like James Patterson's Alex Cross series.  I also like the Women's Murder Club series.  He has some other novels that I don't really care for, but for the most part, I like his books.  He definitely has a different writing style, but I love it for a quick, easy read.

The book PRIVATE was just awful.  It felt like I was reading a book that was written by a teenager.  Certainly not a bestselling author.  It was boring, didn't flow, hopped, skipped, and jumped from one thing to another. 

I don't want to ruin it for anyone else, but I'd love to hear others' opinions.  Is it just me, or was this book particularly bad??

No, it wasn't just you.  While I didn't think it was awful, it wasn't all that good, either.  I love the Cross books, but I gave up on the Women's Murder Club books a few books ago.  This book was written with the same woman that does the Women's Murder Club, so I just assumed that it was because of that.  But, after saying all that, I will probably read the next in the series - if they keep it going....I like to give a series a good chance.

I loved this book. I enjoyed the new introduction of characters.  I read it in one sitting.

Carol, Maxine Paetro actually just wrote the last few Women's Murder Club books. If you read the first five or so they were written by Andrew Gross. I'm a big fan of Gross (his own series too) but not so much of Paetro.

I haven't read Private yet. I'm sure I will at one point or another but it won't be something I need to read in HC.

I also had a hard time with this book. I do like the Patterson/Paetro books in the Women's Murder Club series, so I thought maybe it was just because I read "Private" in short intervals while I was traveling and distracted.

But now that I think about it again, the problem was really that there were three big plots that weren't connecting up: NFL games being rigged; schoolgirl murders; murder of the friend's wife. Plus there were other subplots like the brother, the assistant, and just introducing the agency and all the characters. This is not that long a book and off the top of my head I've just listed six different storylines. No wonder the whole thing felt disjointed and jumpy.

Well, I'm getting ready to start The Postcard Killers that he wrote with Liza Marklund.  I have never read anything by her, she has a very popular series (Annida Bengtzon) and is called the #1 bestselling author in Europe.  So, if this is a good one, I suppose I will have to start collecting her series........where does it end?!  Anyone read her books?