With Patterson continuing to move in unexpected directions (his next novel, <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">The Jester, due out in March 2003, is a medieval adventure), it's a pleasure to see him touch home base with another Alex Cross thriller—this one the best Cross yet. The mice of the title are three homicidal Army Rangers, Vietnam vets, and their mysterious controller; as is usual in the Cross novels, we know this much sooner than does the black Washington, D.C., detective, who gets involved when an army careerist, Sgt. Ellis Cooper, an old pal of Cross's colleague and best friend, John Sampson, is found guilty at military trial for the brutal murder of three women, but claims innocence. Traveling to North Carolina, where Cooper awaits execution, and to Fort Bragg to investigate, Cross and Sampson encounter stonewalling among the military—which only intensifies as they uncover a pattern of other military men executed for like crimes they may not have committed. As the duo visits West Point, they confront an even thicker "gray" wall of silence. Meanwhile, the killers strike again, and when Cross and Sampson identify them, the Rangers begin hunting the cops. The action leads, as is Patterson's custom, to a firecracker string of climaxes; the finale finds Cross handcuffed and stripped naked in deep woods, about to be killed. Throughout, Patterson expertly balances the conspiratorial action with intriguing developments in Cross's domestic life, including health problems for his family's anchor, the elderly Nana, and growing romance between him and a California cop. Everything clicks in this novel, from Patterson's patented short chapters (115 here) to the whiplash plotting. This may not be high lit, but it sure is entertainment. <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">Agent, Jennifer Rudolph Walsh at William Morris. (Nov. 18)

<EMPHASIS TYPE=""BOLD"">Forecast:<EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">There will be a five-city author tour and a major media blitz for this book, but Patterson could probably hide in a bunker during publication and see this hit number one.

The blood-soaked soil of Vietnam is revisited in Four Blind Mice, Patterson's novel of rage, revenge, violence, and gruesome serial murders. Fernandez and Emerson are flawless in their blended quest to express the explosive energy of series cop Alex Cross and his partner. Background music intersperses the captivating dialogue between two sociable sleuths, their fiendish prey (three assassins), and an array of other characters. Mature listeners will become engulfed in the blunt exchanges.

Schematic and pedestrian, Patterson's latest (after The Beach House , p. 519) pits Alex Cross against a trio of serial killers. If only Alex Cross (last seen in Violets Are Blue , 200l) could retire from the Washington Police Force, as he wants to when he first appears here, having breakfast with his family. Alas, Cross's friend John Sampson entreats the detective to take one more case, and a desultory pursuit ensues. Sampson believes the conviction of his friend, 'Nam vet Ellis Cooper, for the brutal murder of three women resulted from a frame-up. Patterson's quick (what else?) crosscut to the killers bears Sampson out. Calling themselves "the three blind mice," the men are hired killers unaware of the identity and motives of their employer, who, presumably, is the fourth mouse of the title. With "the clock for Ellis Cooper . . . ticking so loud," Cross and Sampson search in vain for evidence to clear him before he is executed. The Army's indifference to evidence that clears Cooper and points to other suspects bluntly suggests a cover-up. Then, crimes similar to the ones Copper allegedly committed follow: the three killers slaughter their victims, paint them red, and leave a straw doll at the scene of the carnage. E-mails from someone called "Foot Soldier" lead Cross to the solution, which, as Patterson makes obvious, stems from atrocities the military committed in Vietnam. Some feel-good domestic scenes (Cross's grandma survives heart surgery) and a few hackneyed romantic interludes for Cross and Sampson break up the chase. At the closeout, the killers dispatched, Cross is planning to go to work for the FBI, suggesting a new tack for the series. Short chapters, paragraphs, and sentences; stilted dialogue; facile plotting; a few feeble passes at description: a Patterson blue-plate special.