Deadly Cross

Deadly Cross is the twenty eighth Alex Cross novel from James Patterson, published in 2020. The Alex Cross series is the longest running and arguably the most central of Patterson’s franchises, following the Washington DC homicide detective and forensic psychologist across nearly three decades of cases. By this entry the established Cross universe is firmly in place. Alex’s wife Bree, his grandmother Nana Mama, his children, his partner John Sampson, his federal contacts, and the rotating set of antagonists who have made his life dangerous across many novels.

In this entry, Cross is pulled into the strange murder of Kay Willingham, a glamorous Washington socialite and lobbyist whose body is found alongside that of a male companion in a darkened parking garage. Kay had been Alex’s patient years earlier and Alex had found her one of the most interesting and difficult clients he had worked with. The case quickly turns up connections to the highest levels of Washington politics, including national security implications that pull Alex into territory the local DC homicide unit is not equipped to handle alone. Patterson and his collaborators move the plot through the kind of escalating procedural mystery the series has been delivering reliably for years.

The Alex Cross franchise has remained one of Patterson’s most consistent in part because Alex himself has been allowed to age and develop across the books. Unlike some long running thriller protagonists who stay in a permanent middle age across decades, Alex has gotten older, his children have grown up, and his marriage has gone through real challenges that the books have engaged with. The cumulative weight of his history with Bree, with Sampson, and with the DC police community gives the late series novels an emotional grounding that some series of comparable length have lost.

For longtime Alex Cross readers, Deadly Cross is a satisfying late entry that continues the franchise without breaking what has been working. For new readers, the books can be picked up at almost any point but the early novels like Along Came a Spider give the strongest sense of who Alex actually is.