Book Review – Haunted by James Patterson & James O. Born
Table of Contents
Rating – 3.5 out of 5
Plot Summary – Haunted
This is Michael Bennett # 10, the Irish-American NYPD detective with an insanely large family – 10 adopted kids, one Grandfather, Seamus, who’s a priest, and the kids’ nanny (Mary Catherine) who is also Mike’s love interest. Earlier in the series, Michael loses his wife to cancer, leaving him to bring up the kids. The kids are from varying ethnic backgrounds and of different ages, and what James Patterson does here is really commendable.
Almost all the kids get their space in the novels, their abilities, likes, and quirks giving various parenting lessons. James Patterson builds up the relationship between Mary Catherine and Michael well and spends good enough time structuring the nuances of a love affair between the two with a lot of depth. All in all, this series, in particular, is not an all-action Hollywood potboiler, it has a lot more drama than just a cop story. Brian, his eldest son, is being prosecuted for selling drugs and Michael cannot believe it. His preoccupation with this makes him falter at work and he gets suspended.
From here the story takes off with Brian, being incarcerated on Drug charges and after the subsidence of the emotional upheaval, the family takes off on a much-needed vacation to the backwaters of Maine, which is when the best-laid plans of the family start going south. They take up residence in one of Michael’s old partners (in NYPD) Sandy‘s vacant home by the waterfront, and she is also the Police Chief here in this small town. But the escapist vacation of the Bennett family does not go as planned.
Kids and teenagers in this town are into a vicious cycle of drugs and substance abuse and when some of them turn up dead, Michael’s ex-partner (and one-time fling) asks for his help. Thinking this will help take his mind off his own crisis with his eldest son Brian, Michael jumps at the opportunity. But there is a bigger conspiracy at work here, something as sinister as the those on the streets of New York that Michael has left behind. While Michael works towards cleaning up the rapidly spreading mess here, he is also hoping that the truth behind Brian’s missteps will eventually come out. Will Michael be able to eventually solve the problems of this Haunted Maine town?
Conclusion – Book Review of Haunted
The plot has a few holes but in typical James Patterson fashion, he breezes over them. And the end is typically where everything falls nicely into place. In this edition of the long-running series, Michael and his family’s caretaker in chief, Mary Catherine pay attention to the sparks that had started flying between them and seem to be headed towards blessed matrimony. What happens next is for the later installments of the series to figure out. It also helps that Sandy, the local Police Chief and ex-partner of Michael at NYPD, is also his ex-flame and though there are no romance rekindling here, it helps to bring Michael and Mary Catherine closer.
One line opinion – Light, fast-paced read to relieve the stresses of life, I read it in four days with not too many takeaways from it. Previous editions of the series were slightly more engrossing and deeper in plotting.
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