MISTRESS

Mistress is the 30th stand-alone novel by prolific American author, James Patterson, co-written by David Ellis. Ben Casper is a political journalist for his own online newspaper based in Washington DC. When he witnesses the apparent suicide of his good friend, Diana Hotchkiss, his grief is soon overcome by disbelief. He is certain that she would not suicide, but as he investigates, he discovers a Diana he does not recognise, a woman with secret lovers and uncharacteristic behaviour. And it seems that people Ben talks to begin to die with alarming regularity. Ben finds himself escaping death by the narrowest of margins. The clues seem to lead to the upper levels of Washington power brokers. As with most Patterson fiction, the novel is plot-driven; the characters have very little depth. Ben is the only character who is expanded upon: the reader spends the novel inside the head of a narrator who relates almost everything he experiences to TV or movies, trivia about presidents, or songs and artists. Ben’s constant patter about movies, presidents, bikes and music is at once a source of humour, a distraction from the main event and a filler between the action. Without it, the novel would have been considerably shorter. Ben’s own history is interspersed throughout the novel, but the final resolution feels a little rushed. Ellis manages to incorporate blackmail, several murders, explosions, shootings, the CIA, the Russians, the Chinese, the President and plenty of well-known DC landmarks into the plot. The Russian action is surprisingly topical considering events in the Ukraine. Once again in the format of Patterson’s extremely short chapters, this is a page-turner that has plenty of twists and turns.