A Serial Killer Terrorizes Paris in James Patterson’s New Novel

The tenth installment of James Patterson’s Private series, Private Paris, takes the series’ nonstop action and inventive plotting to (you guessed it) France, where Private’s Jack Morgan has stopped to check in on the security and investigation firm’s Paris office, and visit the former policeman who runs it, the formidable Louis Langlois.

Before you can say “oh la la,” Jack and Louis are pulled into another breakneck adventure—or pair of adventures, as they’re first called on by one of Private’s most important (and wealthiest) clients to rescue his wild granddaughter from a situation way over her head, and then become embroiled in a series of murders that add up to a terrifying terrorist plot on an unprecedented scale. The way these storylines weave together lends the novel the light-speed plotting and action of a Jason Bourne novel, and the puzzle-like nature of The Da Vinci Code. The result is a breathless thriller with a doozy of a denouement.
Skip those assumptions
Readers who like to try and outsmart the characters will need to keep their assumptions in check: Patterson and Sullivan will use them against you over and over. From the first page to the last, there’s barely a moment to catch your breath; things go from bad to worse as an entire city—an entire culture—seems poised to spin out of control, and the clues as to what’s really happening are easy to miss.
The clues
Someone is murdering Paris’ leading cultural figures—chefs, writers, musicians, artists—and leaving them in a Petrine Cross pose, the upside-down crucification St. Peter requested. At each murder scene, a mysterious graffiti tag is found: AB-16. As Morgan and Langlois put all of Private’s considerable resources into assisting the French authorities with the investigation, the authors parcel out tantalizing clues to a much broader mystery tinged with brutal violence. The stakes keep getting higher until you realize the Private crew is fighting for civilization itself.
The action
As the books split time between tracking the missing granddaughter, puzzling over AB-16, and finding one of Private’s own Muslim employees under suspicion as AB-16 puts out a call for Parisian Muslims to rise up against what it calls a prejudiced, bigoted culture, there are gun fights, kidnappings, and breathless chases through the streets of the City of Light.
With a plot that explores the xenophobia and an unease over shifting cultural barriers that feels all too realistic, Private Paris pulses with a cutting-edge energy, combining a breakneck story with real contemplation of the modern world.