My Mr. Darcy...

Me & Mr. Darcy by Alexandra Potter made me want to pull out the old Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice again and watch the Keira Knightley movie, which I did last night. Potter's dialogue can be witty at times and her parallels to the original work are uncanny and hard to miss, particularly between Emily Albright and Spike Hargreaves. Emily is much like a modern-day Elizabeth Bennett given her reliance on e-mail, text messaging, and other things. Spike, on the other hand, is no Mr. Darcy. Like any other nonsensical romance, there are unbelievable leaps of faith to be had in this book.

***Spoiler Alert***
The book opens with another horrible date about to end for Emily in New York City where a modern day man is asking her to put in more money for the restaurant bill because she ordered extra toppings on her half of the pizza. How dare he ask her to pitch in?! This part confused me, perhaps because I am not a New Yorker or because I am interested in paying my own way even on dates. I'm not sure, but she seemed a bit petty to me in the beginning...though he did ask if she had the additional 75 cents for the bill and proceeded to count her change as if he did not believe she gave him the correct amount. After her date and being left on the curbside when her date steals her cab, Emily swears off men.

At the bookstore she manages in SoHo, her co-worker arranges for them both to be off for Christmas and New Year's so they can go to Mexico on a 18-30 binge. Emily, the bookworm that she is, doesn't want to even think about the nasty, sweaty, drunk men she will meet there and makes up a vacation, which to her delight becomes a real vacation in the countryside of England--the home of Jane Austen and Mr. Darcy.

The trip to England has her butting heads with Hargreaves, who is no Mr. Darcy in stature, eloquence, demeanor, nor beauty. He's an average guy with average looks (sorry, I did not find him appealing--call me a snob if you must) and an investigative reporting job with England's The Daily Times. He's on the literary tour to interview its participants, including Emily, because a recent survey of women discovered Mr. Darcy is their dream date.

Suffice to say, as the tour continues, Emily gets wrapped up in her fantasies of Mr. Darcy. Whether she hits her head a lot, faints, becomes unconscious, or what have you is unclear. What is clear is how real these encounters with the fictional character seem to Emily.

***End Spoiler Alert***

I won't go into all the details that parallel Austen's work here because they should be easily picked up on. Had the book been titled differently, I may have not gotten the connection right away.

Would I have made the same choice as Emily? Probably, but then again my fantasy dream date is not Mr. Darcy.

Now what I really need to check out is this Pride and Prejudice movie with Colin Firth. I hear from Emily that its a romantic's dream.

For the moment, I'm traveling down The Road with Cormac McCarthy.

Double XX, Marks the Spot

Double Cross by James Patterson, the latest in the Alex Cross series, is a gripping continuation. There are two psychopathic killers on the loose and they are in competition with one another. Alex has yet another love interest, Bree Stone, who just happens to be a detective with the Washington D.C. police department, but Cross is no longer with the FBI or the police department. In fact, he's become the family man, with his own psychiatric practice and patients.

This is the book I've been waiting to read from Patterson. The last two Patterson books I've read have left me wanting better writing and more intricate plots. This has most of both. The writing is better, the characters are sympathetic and varied, and the plot is definitely much less contrived than the previous two.

***Spoiler Alert***
Alex Cross has his patients and comes home for dinner with the family on a daily basis, which is something that his kids are certainly not used to. It's good to see him with the family and the newest love of his life, but you know something will happen to draw him back into the game. First there are a series of killings by a serial murderer interested in having an audience for his crimes, and those audiences get bigger and bigger. Then, Kyle Craig, Alex Cross' archenemy The Mastermind, escapes from the inescapable prison in Colorado. What is Craig after and how did he escape. I almost wished there was more with this storyline, rather than the DCAK murders, but I'm sure that Craig will resurface in the next installment.

DCAK is a ego-maniac in search of his own infamy...he wants to be larger than life, bigger than Kyle Craig, himself. It's this desire to be better and then thinking he is better that becomes DCAK's downfall. I love the meeting of DCAK and Craig. That is the best interlude in the book. The showdown in the alley near the end is suspenseful and nerve-wracking. I couldn't wait to see the outcome.

***End Spoiler Alert***

Patterson does a better job in this book of maintaining my interest in this book. Overall, this series is the most well-crafted of the ones he has created and is probably why it remains so popular. The suspense in the latter half of the book is phenomenal, and I over-thought the book a bit when I was waiting for Bree Stone to turn on Cross and shoot him and reveal herself as part of the coup. It's a great addition to the Cross series, and this time around the end gives you an even bigger lead in to the next book that is sure to come in the series.