THE GAMES

4 stars out of 5

Talk about perfect timing! This book, set in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, makes a great lead-in to the 2016 Olympics, set to begin there Aug. 5. In fact, I read chunks of it with one eye on my Kindle and the other on our TV set, so I wouldn't miss swimming, gymnastics and track-and-field trials.

Hopefully, though, none of the events of the book - most of which take place within a couple of weeks of the Olympics - will be replicated at the real thing. The story actually begins a couple of years earlier at the World Games, when Jack Morgan's international security and consulting firm, Private, is hired to help make sure things go off without a hitch. Almost unnoticed amid all that action is the death of two young children, who mysteriously contracted an Ebola-like virus. 

Now Morgan is back in the "Marvelous City," teaming up with the beautiful and super-qualified chief of Private's Rio office. He's actually there to protect the two teenage daughters of a client - a filthy rich guy who's company won bids to help build the Olympics venues. The daughters, it seems, are volunteers in the city's favelas - extremely poor neighborhoods interspersed among those filled with million-dollar homes. As bad luck would have it, the girls turn up missing - and Jack's capable team now has the new, near-impossible task of finding them before it's too late. 

As all this is happening, another potentially deadly scenario is taking place unbeknownst to the kidnapping. Someone connected to the earlier World Games, it seems, has decided that no bad deed shall go unpunished. As the two story lines begin to merge, Jack and his team are charged with a new, and potentially far more deadly, challenge: Preventing a deadly threat to the Olympics and the city as a whole from becoming reality.

It's an interesting, fast-paced book, but a modicum (or more) of predictability means it probably won't keep you on the edge of your seat. Still, this is probably my favorite series of the Patterson book empire; already, I'm looking forward to the next location.

The Games by James Patterson and Mark Sullivan (Little, Brown and Co., June 2016); 400 pp.

PRIVATE PARIS

4 stars out of 5

If it’s gruesome murder, mayhem and terrorism you want, you’ll find them all here – from the start to the finish. Yes, much of it goes way over the top, but I have to admit even those parts kept me reading almost nonstop.

It begins innocently enough as Jack Morgan, founder of high-tech, high-profile security firm Private, stops in to visit with his old friend Louis Langlois, who heads up Private’s Paris office. There, Jack gets a call from a wealthy client, who insists that Jack try to find his granddaughter. She’s all he’s got left, and she appears to have landed on the wrong side of a dangerous drug dealer who’s intent on doing her in.

Just as Jack begins his search, one of the country’s cultural heavyweights turns up murdered – literally - turned upside down to hang. Then comes another, and another, with not a single one going gently into the good night. The MOs are similar, as is the presence of an unexplained graffiti symbol, AB-16. And if the murders weren’t enough, the authors throw in a few rather spectacular explosions that kill both police and innocent bystanders that are claimed to be acts of terrorist Muslim cells.

Everything moves along quickly (the short chapters always present in Patterson’s books help with that aspect). If I have an issue besides the almost implausible scenarios, it’s that Jack himself seems a bit subdued, for want of a better descriptor – not quite up to his usual self. Maybe it’s because the authors wanted to shine more of the spotlight on the Private Paris chief – who I found to be both a competent and likable character - but overall, Jack’s somewhat lackluster appearances were a bit of a disappointment. Then too, although the search for the missing granddaughter was resolved, it came off as almost an afterthought – making me wonder why that thread was included at all. All that considered, this book isn’t my pick of the series litter, but it’s still a pretty darned fun read.

Private Paris by James Patterson and Mark Sullivan (Little, Brown and Co., March 2016); 411 pp.