Jack and Jill by James Patterson

I listened to an unabridged audio book version of Jack & Jill by James Patterson. Finally, I had the whole story again and wasn't listening to an abridgement. Jack & Jill is another Alex Cross novel, and is the third book in the series. Alex and Sampson try to catch the cold blooded killers, Jack and Jill before they kill the president of the United States. They first kill several other high profile people, and they announce ahead of the fact that they intend to kill the president.

Jack and Jill are given different identities throughout the book. They are known as Jack and Jill to the police and FBI, but the real name of Jill is given early on. Jack's true identity isn't revealed until late in the novel. In some ways, it was a good scheme, and makes for a page turner because the reader wants to know who Jack and Jill really are.

On the other hand, I found myself a little confused throughout the book because there are so many names for some of the same people, including another killer who kills young children in who go to the same school as Alex's son, Damon. Maybe I would have had an easier time keeping all the characters straight if I had been reading Jack and Jill as opposed to listening to it while I drove to and from work, but I'm not one hundred percent sure.

I wasn't as thrilled about Jack and Jill as I had been about Cross, Along Came a Spider, and Kiss the Girls. I think it was because a lot of the killing Jack and Jill did was more a political move rather than something tied to their insanity or their emotions. Killing for hire type of schemes aren't as interesting to me as ones tied to emotions. Alex's emotions carry the book, and for that reason I still enjoyed Jack and Jill, but it won't be a book that I would reread or ever buy. I listened to the library's copy of this one.

I give this one 3 stars. ***

That doesn't mean that I'm totally disenchanted with the Alex Cross series. I went ahead and listened to Cat and Mouse right after finishing this one.