Detective Alex Cross returns for another investigation. This time he is on the trail of a psychopathic killer called The Tiger, in Africa

Cross Country
Author: James Patterson
Publisher: Random House
Price: Rs 420
Rating: JJJJ

This book will be read because

Everybody loves Patterson. In 2007 an estimated 16 million of his books were sold in the United States alone more (according to the James Patterson official web site) than the combined number of John Grisham and Stephen King books sold that year. More than 150 million of his books have apparently sold worldwide and he has had 19 consecutive No. 1 New York Times hardcover bestselling novels.

It's easy enough to see how this happened. The nearly-400 pages of this book slip rapidly and fluently through your fingers. Cross Country is laid out in a neatly-spaced non-threatening typeface, has short chapters, exhilarating peaks and troughs, and a backdrop of family warmth, a tragic past, commendable fidelity, foolish bravery and predictable doggedness, against which the plot gallops past.