ALONG CAME A SPIDER: JAMES PATTERSON **

This is the first Alex Cross (an African American forensic psychologist and detective)  thriller, a series that follows the Washington D.C, detective as he catches one serial killer after another.  In this one, he chases Gary Soneji, who kidnaps two famous people's kids from a private school, hides them in an underground grave, and demands 10 million in ransom.  Cross, for unknown reasons, is picked to make the transfer of money; FBI agents screw up the transfer, the ransom gets taken, and no one knows where the money went, where the kids are.  One child, however, is found dead, the other remains missing.  One of the Secret Service Heads, Jezzie Flanagan, befriends Alex and together they attempt to solve the kidnapping and find Soneji.  During their search, they become lovers, intimates, and for the first time since the death of his wife, Alex thinks he may be in love.  Meanwhile, Soneji holes up in a Mc Donald's, is wounded, and captured.  When he is questioned, he says he remembers nothing about the murders, that his name is Gary Murphy.  Either he's a great actor or a split personality, something Alex is familiar with because he has a doctorate in psychology.  He ends up becoming close to Soneji, is asked to testify for him, but refuses to say whether he's acting or actually two different people.

Soneji is convicted and all seems well until Alex discovers that two Secret Service agents were involved in the ransom fiasco, follows the lead and it takes him back to Jezzie, his lover.  He takes her on a vacation, confronts her with the help of FBI, and she confesses everything, that they stepped in for the money.  She and the other two agents are executed for the death of the young boy who could have been saved if they had not gotten greedy.

The young girl is found in South America and returned to her parents.  I forgot to mention that Soneji escaped from prison, chased down the ransom, and comes after Alex and his two kids.  Alex fights him off, then follows him to the DC streets, where Alex is saved by his grade school buddy and fellow detective, John Samson, who wounds Soneji(so he can escape again, no doubt) and Alex and John both live, to chase down more killers.   The plot twists at the end are a little much but we like Alex, his thinking and piecing together of bits and pieces, as he figures out the identity of the killer.  I like it well enough to start reading the second book, KISS THE GIRLS.