Product Description

D.C. Detective Alex Cross has seen a lot of crime scenes. But even he is appalled by the gruesome murders of two joggers in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park - killings that look more like the work of savage beasts than humans. Local police are horrified and even the FBI is baffled. Then, as Cross is called in to take on the case, the carnage takes off, leaving a trail of bodies across America and sweeping him to Savannah, Las Vegas, New Orleans, Los Angeles . . as his nemesis, the merciless criminal known as the Mastermind, stalks him, taunts him, and once again, threatens everything he holds dear...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4032 in Books
• Published on: 2002-10-01
• Released on: 2002-09-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 416 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780446611213
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Amazon.com Review
Fans of James Patterson's resourceful cop Alex Cross will be relieved to find that he's back on familiar territory with Violets Are Blue--and, more importantly, that this is one of the best Alex Cross thrillers yet.

The malign criminal genius of Roses Are Red is fixing to give Alex a hard time once again. The FBI joins Patterson's dogged cop in a particularly unsettling investigation: two San Francisco joggers have been viciously murdered and are found suspended by their feet, with all the blood drained from their corpses. And when further brutal deaths follow in California and on the East Coast, Alex is forced to contemplate the bizarre possibility of modern-day vampires, although his instincts point him to one of the many sinister religious cults that flourish on the West Coast. Aided by Jamilla Hughes, a streetwise young woman detective from San Francisco, Alex finds that he has to crack not one but two impenetrable mysteries to stop further bloodletting.

Patterson fans expect the extremely concise, page-turning chapters (116 of them here!), along with a reluctance to dawdle over details of his hero's personal life, and both characteristics are firmly back in place. If you can resist reading this one in just a few sittings, you deserve some kind of a thriller reader's medal. --Barry Forshaw, Amazon.co.uk

From Publishers Weekly
Washington, D.C., police detective Alex Cross returns for another visit (after Roses Are Red) to the top of the lists and for two new cases of disparate quality. The first, which dominates the narrative, takes place within America's vampire underground and is as exciting as anything Patterson has written; the second, in which Cross at last defeats the nemesis known as "the Mastermind," feels tacked on only to knot loose ends. In San Francisco, two joggers are slain, seemingly by both tiger and human teeth, and their blood drained; then an upscale couple is killed similarly in Marin County deaths suggestive of an earlier Cross case, prompting the detective's old pal Kyle Craig of the FBI to ask for his help. Craig's plea plunges Cross not only into a fetishistic netherworld in which thousands play at being vampires and a handful actually do kill for blood, but into personal turbulence as he alienates his family by his dedication to work, and as his always troubled love life takes further dips and flights, the latter in the company of SFPD Insp. Jamilla Hughes, who joins him on the cases. We know the good guys' immediate quarry, but they don't: two golden young men, brothers and self-styled vampires, with a pet tiger at their side. But who is the Sire, their ultimate leader? Meanwhile, the Mastermind, a brilliant homicidal maniac, plagues Cross with threatening phone calls. Most readers probably won't finger the Sire, but anyone who can't name the Mastermind long before Patterson reveals his identity must be reading this book backwards. The action reels around the country, from D.C. to California to Las Vegas to North Carolina, and readers will be swept away by it and by Patterson's expert mixing of Cross's professional and personal challenges. The narrative split between the two cases, vampiric and Mastermind, jars but not enough to seriously mar fans' pleasure, and the two cases will probably mesh more elegantly in the inevitable movie to come. (Nov. 19)Forecast: Is there a writer hotter than Patterson? A 10-city author tour, the forthcoming TV miniseries of his First to Die, and the simultaneous AudioBooks (unabridged and abridged, tape and CD) of Violets Are Blue will only increase the heat.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
When two murders in San Francisco recall a case in Washington, DC, that Alex Cross has yet to solve, the wily detective is up and running and he runs straight into a bizarre group of role players who think that they really are vampires.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Vampires, Tigers and Alex Cross, OH MY!
It may be true that when an author becomes enormously popular while writing a suspenseful series, they're under some sort of pressure to keep writing more and more covoluted or even more and more bizarre plots to keep readers interested. Enter James Patterson not entirely unknown for some strange plots in his stand aloen books or even bizarre premises i.e., his older title When the Wind Blows where children are gnetically altered in the womb so they are born with wings and can fly. Once again in his latest Alex Cross book, Patterson introduces several more bizarre elemnts to a case Alex tries to solve.

In the novel, Violets are Blue, two brothers are featured as grisly serial killers whose murders at times either resemble the work of vampires or tigers. Now thousands of readers favorite psychology/detective is on a mission to find the killer when his partner is found dead. And if this isn't enough, almost immediately in another part of the country another murder occurs which almost mimcs Alex's partners death. As Alex crisscrosses the nation investigating these bizarre murders and some other very weird folks, somebody known as the Mastermind is keeping track of Alex's every move. Its as if this individual, who some readers may remember from the previous book Roses are Red, is always one step in front of Alex taunting him with warning phone calls and threats agaisnt his family. Alex spends the majority of the book preplexed, confused, overworked and overwrought. By the end, Patterson ties up at least two parts of the plots neatly but leaves one danglgnthread. And it is this thread which left this reader perplexed, confused and overwrought. For it seems that this may be the end of Alex Cross or is it?

Fear not Patterson fans if this is the end for dear Alex. We can eagerly wait for the second book featuring the Womens Murder Club from 1st to Die and perhaps another romance goodie like Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas. But this reader still can't help but remember how much I enjoyed Along Came a Spider when Alex Cross burst onto the literary scene and had me holding my breath till the next book was published.

two tales in one.......not a good thing
Violets Are Blue is almost two completely separate tales in one book. One involves gruesome murders where the blood has been drained from the victims. This series of gorey murders leads into the world of modern vampires. This is frightening and intriguing and draws the reader into the dark world of fact and fiction surrounding this cult-like existence. It is both fascinating and repelling at the same time. When the Mastermind, the bad guy from Roses Are Red, turns out to be involved, then it begins to feel like two separate stories that never quite seem to fit themselves together. This would have been far better had the Mastermind not been a part of this. That part feels forced. You never feel like "Oh yeah, now I see who it was!" more like "Oh, him........well, I guess so."
It just kind of fizzles in the finale.

Patterson is still on top!!!!!!!
I was getting very bored with Alex Cross, and the number of Alex Cross books James Patterson was putting out. I was glad he came out with Suzannes Diary for Nickholas and 1st to Die. I was reading about Mr.Patterson last night, and I read that he said that after 2 books going back to Alex Cross is going to be fun, and that he has great ideas about this book.

Anyways, I have read it, in 2 days, and it is the 2nd best book of his I have read (When the Wind Blows is first). This book was very creepy, and very intence, and I enjoyed every page I read. James Patterson is still on top...............