James Patterson, Inc.
Sorry, Mr. Patterson, I refuse to read your latest book. I haven’t read what comes off the assembly lines at James Patterson, Inc., in fact, for quite a while. You’ve continued to be like the greedy thesis adviser who puts his name first on an academic publication so he’ll get all the credit and citations, not his student; i.e., the second author’s name is below yours in small print…and for exactly the same reasons! Mr. Patterson, you haven’t written anything really original or interesting in a long time. Instead, James Patterson, Inc. has turned out book after book, including young adult and romance stories as you, its CEO, continues to attack self-published authors. You’re the leader and the epitome of members from that group of formulaic mares and stallions waiting for the glue factory in the Big Five publishing conglomerates’ stables.
Now you’re advertising Holmes, Marple, and Poe everywhere, even on TV. Wow! How original that book must be? Maybe it’s a time-travel yarn about those famous fictional and real people teaming up on some faraway planet? Or about three kids playing detective, a Hardy boys + Nancy Drew-like story to keep your foot in YA fiction’s door? Or a modern Fifty Shades of something-romance about a lusty, sexy triad? I don’t care what it is. I’m not reading it!
FYI to you and all readers of this blog: I long ago put Marple and Poirot together when I began the now nine-book long “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series, but those were only nicknames for the main characters: Esther is a more active Marple; and Bastiann van Coevorden, the other half of the detective-duo, only looks like David Suchet, the actor who portrayed Poirot so often. (By the way, Mr. Patterson, Poe was a mystery writer, not a character, so that’s a negative for your title as well.) Also, A. B. Carolan has written YA sci-fi mysteries where one (The Secret Lab) considers a gang of kids on the ISS in the future and another (The Secret of the Urns) has a daughter of a triad as a main character. Because I won’t read Patterson Inc.’s new book, I can’t tell if multiple crimes of plagiarism have been committed by you, but Patterson Inc.’s hyping this new book as something cleverly original just seems wrong, even if it only steals from those awful movies about Holmes.
There was a time long ago when I read your books, Mr. Patterson. I’ll give you some credit: Your early Alex Cross books (where only your name appears as author, so either you weren’t giving ghostwriters credit back then, or you actually managed to write them) taught me that a mix of first person and third person points of view is an interesting technique to use, which I did in the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco” series (eight novels). But the Alex Cross books were your first to become formulaic and boring, causing me to forget about reading anything you or your slave-authors produce. In fact, you’re responsible for me ignoring almost any fiction the Big Five conglomerates produce!
I suppose it’s natural that Big Five authors will try to continue their hold on the book market at any cost. (Sue Grafton never finished the alphabet, though.) That’s sad, but I feel more for those authors Patterson Inc. exploits. They should break the ties to you, Mr. Patterson, and write their own stories. I might read those.
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Marple and Poirot together. The “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series is nine-novels strong, and each one is an original mystery and crime thriller that follows no Big Five formulaic plan. Esther is a more active Marple (and hates that detractors identify her with Christie’s famous character!); Bastiann van Coevorden, her paramour and eventual husband, is an Interpol agent who ends up as an MI5 consultant (he only looks like the actor who played Poirot). She’s very British; he’s very Dutch, not Belgian like Poirot. Their adventures will take any armchair travelers brave enough to avoid the Big Fives formulaic fiction to England, Europe, and even to the Middle East and South America. Two novels, Defanging the Red Dragon and Intolerance, are free PDF downloads. (See the list on the “Free Stuff & Contests” web page. Do you think Patterson Inc. would ever give away two complete novels?)
Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!
