Detective Cross

DetectiveCross by James Patterson, 131 pages

“The suspect is your patient, Dr. Cross. An anonymous caller has promised to set off deadly bombs in Washington, DC. A cruel hoax or the real deal? By the time Alex Cross and his wife, Bree Stone, uncover the chilling truth, it may already be too late....”  This was fine.  It was a really quick read, but considering the amount of white space in a regular Patterson novel, it wasn’t that much shorter.  People who like Patterson’s book will want to read this.  Otherwise, adults who are looking for short, quick reads that deal with mystery and detective type stories might like it.

Twilight at the World of Tomorrow: Genius, Madness, Murder at the 1939 World’s Fair on the Brink of War

Twilight at the World of Tomorrow: Genius, Madness, Murder at the 1939 World’s Fair on the Brink of War by James Mauro    432 pages

Well, this book turned out to be a bust. It had a couple of highlights, but very few.  From the title and dust jacket art, I thought this would be similar to Erik Larson’s “Devil in the White City.”

On one hand it was. Lots of details about the building and execution of the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. One of the more interesting details that I learned was about its location. Out in Flushing Meadow in the Queens Borough, there was a trash dump. The men behind the fair had it filled in and it became the fairgrounds.

I had hoped to get a glimpse of the genius (considering Albert Einstein is on the cover), and I guess there was some of that…how the technology worked. The Madness stemmed from its president, Grover Whalen, who seemed just a tad OCD. As for the murder, during the second half of the fair, there was a problem with bombings. However, none of how the bombs were found, the destruction they caused or those who lost their lives even began until page 290.

Twilight at the World of Tomorrow  gets 1 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.