The Plot
In Afghanistan, a US Special Forces pilot is shot down during a covert mission.
In New York, a mother is forced to flee with her two young children.
A wealthy businessman approaches Jack Morgan, head of Private – the world’s largest investigation agency – with a desperate plea to track down his daughter and grandchildren, who have disappeared without a trace.
What at first seems to be a simple missing persons case soon escalates into something much more deadly, when Jack discovers the daughter is being pursued by highly trained operatives. As Jack uncovers more of the woman’s backstory, the trail leads towards Afghanistan – where Jack’s career as a US Marine ended in catastrophe .
Jack will need to face the trauma of his past to save a family’s future.
Review by Ian Thirkettle
During our latest break I sat on the beach and read Private Rogue by James Patterson and Adam Hamby. This is part of a series of stories about the Private detective agency. The hero, and head of the agency, is Jack Morgan.
The story is very predictable. Stuff happens, stuff goes wrong and people die. Twisty stuff happens. Our hero sorts it out at personal risk and emotional stress.
About a quarter of the way through the book I realised I didn’t care about any of the characters. So I adopted the approach of reading the first and last paragraph of each chapter. This actually made it more readable as it avoided all the angst ridden heart searching from the middle of the chapters. I know this should make me empathise with the characters, but it all felt false and didn’t work for me.
In summary, I found the book a little shallow. Is there a literary equivalent of ‘being phoned in’. Perhaps, faxed in. Yes, that’s it, this book felt faxed in.
I have enjoyed James Patterson books in the past, particularly his collaborations with Bill Clinton but this was too run of the mill, too predictable.
PRIVATE ROGUE BY JAMES PATTERSON AND ADAM HAMBY is available from Amazon and City Adventurers Solve The Murder
The City Adventurers love reading about mystery, so we’ve started our own book club.