Along Came a Spider
1993 • 516 pages

Ratings180

Average rating3.6

15

I wanted so bad to like this book. I am a real life Black Detective who has spent the last 15 years assigned to the Crimes against Children's unit. I was immediately sold on this book when I found out that Alex Cross was also black. I'm thinking, finally I can read a book with a detective that looks like me. But no, it was immediately obvious that the writer was white. The story is supposed to have taken place in the 90s.

It was like the author kept trying to remind us that Cross is black. The dialogue between black people was horrible. At one point there was dialogue involving a young black teen. The author tried to use ebonics. It was so bad that I didn't even understand what she was saying and I was born and raised on the south side of Chicago. At one point Cross referred to himself as the n-word (with the ER) to a black woman. We don't talk like that James Patterson. You could've at least used the a at the end.

Someone also called Cross's girlfriend/killer a n-word lover. It's the 90s James, not the 60s.

Then there was the cross burned in the yard by the KKK

November 27, 2024