Sunday Salon: Private by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro

James Patterson and a co-author have a new book out every few months it seems like and you have to wonder, ‘how do they do it?’

When I had the opportunity to review his current release, PRIVATE, I couldn’t resist. I’ve never read a lot of his books, but the TV series Women’s Murder Club based on his books got me hooked.

Jack Morgan is the protagonist in this thriller set in sunny California where the rich and famous come to Private when they have secrets they want to hide or find someone else’s.

Private is an elite detective agency Jack inherited from his estranged father. Jack has built the agency into an international business that caters to the secrets of the influentional, but also helps out at the LAPD with cases from time to time.
 
There are three major cases Private is working on:
* Jack’s Uncle Fred has asked him to investigate a possible gambling scandal that could be the downfall of the NFL.
* The district attorney has asked for help in solving the school girls case in which 18 teenage girls have been abducted, killed and no evidence left.
* Jack’s best friend is suspected of killing his wife of less than a year. She was found shot to death in their bedroom. She was a former lover of Jack’s and he introduced her to his friend, Andy.

While dealing with these three major cases, Jack is also dealing with PTSD from his time in Afghanistan. In addition, he’s getting threatening calls from a mysterious caller and he helps his gambling twin brother out of a jam with the mafia.

The investigation of the three cases will take you on an exhilarating ride. The staff at Private is also a intriguing mix of characters. You’re in for a few surprises and twists along the way. While some of the plot may be considered predictable, it brings realism to this world of intrigue, glamour and glitz. I will say there were a couple of surprises at the end I didn’t see coming.

Patterson and Paetro leave the reader wanting more and from what I read last night there is a sequel coming out. What mysteries will Jack be solving this time and who's secrets will he be keeping?

Private by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro, Hachette Auto, @2010, ISBN: 9781607884484, Unabridged, 6 Discs, Approximately 7 hours

FTC Full Disclosure - I requested this audio book and it was sent to me by the publisher in hopes I would review it. However, receiving the complimentary copy did not influence my review.

Thanks and an Explanation

It’s hard to believe it’s Saturday again, I turned around and another week has flown by with little to show for it. Ever have one of those weeks? I think as we get older, weeks like that happened more often (or at least they do for me).

I want to say ‘thank you’ to Carol at Under the Tiki Hut for presenting me with the 'You Deserve A Star Today' award. I’m honored to receive this award from Carol. If you haven’t stopped by her blog, please do so. She recently changed the background of her blog and every time I stop by I just want to stay and visit. She always has such interesting and entertaining posts too. One of my favorites is her ‘Friday’s Top Ten’ list. Thanks Carol.

There was no pressure with this award so that’s the way I’m passing it along too. I do appreciate each and everyone who stops by but I’d like to say a special thanks to these three bloggers I hope you’ll visit (if you don’t already). I appreciate their informative and enlightening posts, as well as the one they do with a twist of humor.

Talli at Talli Roland
Margot at Confessions of a Mystery Novelist ...
Diane at Spunk On A Stick

Having received this award from Carol this week I feel I’ve not deserved it since I have more or less been absent from visiting your various blogs. I do have a good reason for not touring blogdom as much this past week  -  football. Now wait, I’m not talking about playing or watching football, even though I do enjoy the sport. I’m talking about covering football in a manner of speaking.

Small towns across the US love high school football. With that in mind each year my paper does a special section highlighting the two local high school teams. In the past, this has been a fairly simple task. The larger newspaper of our parent company did all the articles and provided the photos (since they cover the region). I sold the advertising, did the page layouts and flowed everything in before sending it off to the press along with doing my regular paper for the week. This always comes out the week of the teams' first game.

Everything was going along smoothly for this year's section or so I thought. As I prepared to begin the layout of the pages I found out the sports department did not have anything for me this year  -  no articles, no photos. I began to search and ask for help. I haven’t taken photos of ball teams in a number of years and did not look forward to doing it again.

After a number of requests, the sports department was able to give me a short preview of both teams and their roster for the year. In addition, someone had sent them photos of one of teams. I was finally able to track down someone at the other high school that had photos of all the players on a CD.

So for the past three days I have worked with almost 200 photos (had to go through groups shots too), re-sizing (32 inches wide down to 2.5 inches wide), re-formatting and trying to match with the numbers and names on rosters. I was surprised at the number of players that quit after having their photos made and the number of players who change jersey numbers. Then all of that, along with the small amount of copy I had been given, had to be laid out into a special section around ads and it all had to fit.

I normally have some time during the day to drop by the various blogs I love to visit, but with this project I didn’t take much time away. I wanted to be sure that I got the right names under the right photos. I’ve got my fingers crossed now that I didn’t put someone’s photo in twice or mismatch a name and photo. After looking at it for so long, it all started to look alike.

So I’m sorry I’ve not been by to visit and that I haven’t been here to respond to your wonderful comments. Thank you for stopping by even when I couldn’t be here. Y’all are the best.

Today I hope to get caught up on awarding some books whose deadlines have already past. I’ll notify winners today and post their names on the winners’ page by Monday. I like to give the winners a chance to let me know if they have won the book somewhere else since I sometimes run behind other bloggers awarding books.

I also hope to have a review of PRIVATE by James Patterson tomorrow and I have a number of cozy murder mysteries I’ll be reviewing this coming week too. In addition, several wonderful authors - Kerri Nelson, Sheryl Nelms and Paula Quinn - will be guest blogging here.

Thanks again for stopping by and I hope everyone has a wonderful and safe Saturday.