This is gonna sound like I'm beating a dead horse, but I firmly believe that James Patterson is quite possibly one of the worst writers that has ever achieved mainstream success on the bookshelves; even Stephen said his books were terrible. I've tried reading some them, and I could only get about twenty pages in before tossing them out of my sight, preferably into a furnace, my mind in a state that is alternately one of disgust and confusion. You know you're in trouble when you can't maintain reader interest after a few mind-bogglingly short chapters.