Saturday, August 19, 2017

Book Review: Worst Case


Book: Worst Case (Michael Bennett book #3) by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge

Edition: Paperback

Rating: 4 stars

Review:

Worst Case is a suspenseful thriller that follows a killer who in his desire to make a change in the world focused on the inequality of wealth and massive poverty by going after the children of some of the most wealthiest residents in New York City. The killer was taking the wrong approach to social justice that's for sure.

NYPD Detective Michael Bennett was immediately called in after the first victim a college student was abducted on his way home from a bar. As a child abduction expert, FBI Agent Emily Parker was called in from Virginia to assist with the case.

Detective Bennett and Agent Parker and their team found out early on that the killer was playing games with them when they thought a quick negotiation was leading them to saving the victim. Instead all they found was the victim's body. It wasn't long before news broke that he abducted yet another victim unfortunately with the same disastrous results.

How can they stop someone who seems to be steps ahead of them and will they be able to stop him before his devastating endgame is set into motion?

Although this was an engaging and fast-paced story there were a few lines that were on the corny side, it was the ending I thought was a little anticlimactic. At times, it felt like it was moving way too fast but it doesn't ruin the story just makes it seem like the mystery ended too soon and some things just seem way too ridiculous. Since I did not read the first two books, this was easy to follow with the authors providing a good amount of information about the characters so I wasn't left wondering who any of them were. Detective Bennett is an interesting character but he is a little dense at times. He's a widower trying to balance taking care of his 10 adopted children and working in a highly stressful job. He receives help from the live in nanny Mary Catherine and from his grandfather Seamus a lively and unconventional Priest.

Agent Parker is a divorced single mom with a daughter, she's hard nosed but also very humorous. Something I realized is that Mike may be a good detective but he doesn't know a thing about women. There was a growing attraction between Michael and Emily but it's like he couldn't see that there was also something unspoken between him and Mary but he was too oblivious to realize it.

I enjoyed reading this, it was a quick and entertaining read and now I want to read more from the series. As much as I enjoyed this, I did have a problem with the word retarded being used near the beginning of the book. I really have an issue with how that word is still so casually used when it such a hurtful term.

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