James Patterson’s Private: Yay or Nay?

Book review | Private Princess by James Patterson

What do you expect from a James Patterson novel? Crispy storyline, nail biting narration, exotic locations, interesting characters? After all James Patterson is really a master of his craft and never serves his readers a half-baked product. It’s no wonder that the tautness of his plots has ensured legions of fans.

The Private series by James Pattersonis an endeavour to give his readers something refreshingly innovative. Patterson has collaborated for this series with other writers and the idea is simply brilliant. Privateis the name of the world’s leading investigating agency owned by ex-marine Jack Morgan. It has offices in major countries of the world. However, sometimes your best laid plans go haywire as the serieshas not been able to do justice with the league of Patterson’s brand of writing.

Private Princess,written in collaboration with Reese Jones, starts with lot of promise. Jack Morgan flies to England on a mission involving a prominent member of British royalty. On reaching London Princess Caroline who requests him to trace her missing friend, Sophie Edwards. The Princess is tightlipped about any other information, making Morgan’s job harder. Clearly she has a secret to guard.

As the investigation proceeds, Morgan gets drawn into a whirlpool of violence. He loses Jane Cook, a prominent member of his London branch. The book keeps the readers spellbound till this point. But once the basic plot is unearthed, there is only brutal violence, gravity-defying stunts, and Morgan’s fury to avenge the killing of Jane Cook. Was their  relationship more than a professional one? Blinded with rage, Morgan gets his judgment clouded and is on verge of making critical errors which could cost him his own life. 

It is the wafer thin plot which kills the curiosity factor, and the sheen of the story is lost. If more depth was added to the content, it could have been a knock-out plot and a more polished reading material. Sustaining the reader’s interest simply on Morgan’s obsession for delivering justice and protecting the Monarchy from a lethal scandal resulted in a great storyline turned into a lacklustre affair.

By guest contributor Sachin Arora