James Patterson
The bibliography on this page runs to dozens of titles and it is still only a slice of the whole. Patterson writes the Alex Cross, Michael Bennett, Women's Murder Club, Maximum Ride, Daniel X, NYPD Red, Witch & Wizard, Private and Middle School series, plus standalone thrillers, non-fiction and romance. His books have sold more than 425 million copies. He was the first author to sell a million e-books, and in 2016 he topped Forbes's list of the highest-paid authors for the third consecutive year on an income of $95 million.
What he is genuinely good at is structure. Along Came a Spider, in 1993, introduced Alex Cross and the method that made Patterson unavoidable: chapters two or three pages long, a hook on every break, and viewpoint rotated so the reader always knows slightly more than the detective does. It is engineered to be read at an airport gate with a boarding call going off, and it works. The prose is functional by design, which is the standard criticism of him and also the entire point.
The scale of the operation is visible on the spines. Read the Women's Murder Club titles in order and you are looking at a numbering system rather than a set of titles. He has also put serious money into literacy, from school libraries to independent bookstores.
TV (3)
Books (78)
- Witch & wizard (1999)
- Double Cross (2007)
- When the wind blows (1998)
- Merry Christmas, Alex Cross (2011)
- 10th Anniversary (2008)
- 11th hour (2012)
- Sundays at Tiffany's (2008)
- Criss Cross (2019)
- Beach Road (2006)
- The 19th Christmas (2019)
- Burn (2014)
- Kill Me If You Can (2011)
- The Thomas Berryman number (1976)
- Now you see her (2011)
- Treasure Hunters (2013)
- Nypd Red 2 (2014)
- The Gift (1998)
- The murder of King Tut (2009)
- Unsolved (2019)
- The verdict (2016)
- The genius experiment (2018)
- Kill or be killed (2016)
- Secret of the Forbidden City (2015)
- The Cornwalls Are Gone (2019)
- The Inn (2019)
- Princess (2018)
- Murder in paradise (2018)
- Unbelievably boring Bart (2018)
- Rafe's Aussie [Mis]Adventure (2015)
- Daniel X, the manga 3 (2012)
Where to start with James Patterson
Along Came a Spider is the right door. It is the first Alex Cross novel, it moves like a machine, and if the method has not caught you in fifty pages then nothing further down this list will. Kiss the Girls is the immediate follow-up and the harsher of the two.
After that the series finds its rhythm. Jack & Jill and Cat & Mouse are the strong middle, The Big Bad Wolf is where the formula starts showing through the fabric, and Cross goes back into the detective's own history for material.
If police heroes are not the draw, 1st to Die opens the Women's Murder Club, which is the friendlier series and the one that rewards reading in order, and Step on a Crack begins the Michael Bennett books. Take one from each and you will know very quickly which Patterson you are being sold.
Alex Cross, in reading order
The flagship series and the one to judge him by. Along Came a Spider is the best-constructed, Kiss the Girls made it a fixture, and the middle run settles into a reliable rhythm of short chapters and shorter scenes. Start at the beginning; the recurring cast rewards it.
The Women's Murder Club, if you want the procedural
Four professionals in San Francisco solving cases across a numbered series, and the structure is looser and more companionable than Cross. 1st to Die opens it cleanly and the numbering makes the reading order obvious, which is part of the appeal.
Patterson outside the two big series
Past the franchises there is a large shelf of standalones and other series, some co-written and some early solo work. When the Wind Blows is the strangest thing he has published, Virgin is the early novel almost nobody has read, and Private opens the other long-running brand.