Fiction Addict

Genre: Thriller

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Publication Date:  August 2010

Reviewed by Jake Chism

All over Europe young couples are being murdered and no clues are left behind. In every city, the killers send a postcard to the local paper before each slaying, but the police remain baffled and confused as the murderers run free. NYPD Detective Jacob Kanon lost his daughter to these monsters and is desperately traveling from city to city hoping to find one more piece to the puzzle. In Stockholm, Sweden, reporter Dessie Larsson has received the latest postcard indicating the murderers are about to strike again. Larsson and Kanon must now team up to stop this insurmountable foe and uncover the darkness that lies beneath.

What do you get when the #1 Bestselling Author in the U.S. (James Patterson) meets the #1 Bestselling Author in Europe (Liza Marklund)? According to the front cover of the book we get “the scariest vacation thriller ever.” While that may be clever marketing, I think the more appropriate tagline would be, “the most disturbing vacation thriller ever.”

Patterson and his co-authors often resort to over the top gimmicks in their writing that amount to nothing more than shock value. The Postcard Killers is a prime example with loads of graphic content, distasteful sex scenes, and an incestuous relationship thrown in our faces to really make us squirm. All these elements are just loud distractions attempting to cover up the fact that the story is mediocre at best.

As always, Patterson’s tight writing and relentless pacing keep the pages flying, but by the end I was just ready for this one to be over. Had more effort been made into fleshing out the characters or actually making this book scary this could have been a fun story. Sadly, the gimmicks and overall lack of depth drag this story down making this hyped collaboration a sore disappointment. Luckily for Patterson fans, after finding a dud we only have a couple of months at most to wait for his next attempt. I’m hoping the upcoming continuations of the stellar Alex Cross and Michael Bennett series will reflect the talent and creativity that Patterson is more than capable of.

Review copy provided by Little, Brown and Company.