But there are more villains added to the mix as Billy juggles more cases and I wasn't into the rest of the story. He is the creator of unforgettable characters and series, including Alex Cross, the Women’s Murder Club, Jane Effing Smith, and Maximum Ride, and of breathtaking true stories about the Kennedys, John Lennon, and Princess Diana, as well as our military heroes, police officers, and ER nurses. Billy Harney is a new addition to my roster of Favorite Detectives in Literature and book 3 did not disappoint. However, I must say that back in 2017 I read his heavily promoted novel, “The Black Book” co-written with David Ellis.

I am late to the series, but quite a bit has happened to Billy in the first two entries, THE BLACK BOOK and THE RED BOOK.Overall, this book was an okay escapist read if you are willing to suspend your sense of realism in the storytelling. While not the best of the Patterson’s attributed series, it kept me intrigued until the final page turn, with a cliffhanger of its own. One that involves being the lead for a task force focused on a major gang bust, taking down Jericho Hooper, the leader of the Imperial Gangster Nation, the biggest and most powerful street gang in Chicago. While I have had some issues with James Patterson and his writing, he has certain collaborators who coax out some superior writing to which the popular author is attributed. His experience and solid writing ability are present in his solo novels, which make for enjoyable reading.

Now, in 2022, Patterson and Ellis have brought back Harney for a third thriller, changing the book type title lingo to “Escape” and setting up Detective Harney’s hunt for a child kidnapper. The narrative flow works well for this piece, which has moments of greatness and others that link two larger plot lines together. This is easier said than done, as this is one conniving individual, happy to stay one pace ahead of the rest. He is the creator of unforgettable characters and series, including Alex Cross, the Women’s Murder Club, Jane Effing Smith, and Maximum Ride, and of breathtaking true stories about the Kennedys, John Lennon, and Princess Diana, as well as our military heroes, police officers, and ER nurses.In 2014, he was sworn in as the youngest-serving Justice of the Illinois Appellate Court, where he now spends his days writing judicial opinions. Patterson and Ellis offer up a decent piece of writing here, sure to find a number of readers eager to explore Billy Harney a little more. The big kicker is that the mystery was well thought out, had multiple layers, and even more important (for those of us who confidently feel that we can figure out the guilty party before he/she is revealed), the outcome was surprising and extremely well-delivered!

I enjoyed Billy Harney as a lead character, his side bar comic moments on the bar stage, and his hope for a potential romance. It was a detective story of Billy Harney, who survives a shooting with his girlfriend and partner while investigating corrupt government officials and police officers in Chicago. Bill does standup at the cop bar when he’s needing to unwind and is on the special assignments force handling the tough stuff.When five teenage girls are abducted, Chicago PD Detective Billy Harney leads the investigation to find them.

Firm plot lines offer the reader some suspense and leave the book from being too predictable, helping to keep the book mysterious when needed. I loved the super short chapters, the way all the moving pieces slowly came together, and the likeable hero of the story. Jericho Hooper is built up pretty big in the beginning but plays a smaller role than expected, and also comes across a bit stiff and one dimensional. However, the daughter’s overheard her father plotting to kill her mom because of the damaging information she has.It appears that the mom has found out horrible things about her husband, enough to drive her to leave and divorce him. This was one of his best books (along with the list of his many co-authors) that I had read in a long time. I had no idea where this story was going; it was all over the place at one point, but the authors did a phenomenal job of bringing everything together for a nice ending which included one hell of a surprise! He has written many other number one bestsellers including collaborations with President Bill Clinton and Dolly Parton, stand-alone thrillers and non-fiction.