 | |
| Author | James Patterson |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Alex Cross |
| Genre | Crime, mystery, thriller |
| Publisher | Little, Brown and Company |
Publication date | November 17, 2003 (1st ed. hardcover) |
| Pages | 390 |
| ISBN | 978-0-316-60290-7 |
| Preceded by | Four Blind Mice |
| Followed by | London Bridges |
The Big Bad Wolf is the ninth novel in the Alex Cross series written by James Patterson and was published in November 2003. [1] The novel was the seventh best-selling novel in 2004. [2]
Alex Cross is a trained forensic psychiatrist and former Washington D.C. homicide detective. He is an African-American based out of the Southeast quadrant of D.C. The Big Bad Wolf is the first novel in the series to feature him in his new role as an FBI agent.
Cross is portrayed as a lonely individual, though empathic and a model father. Though well-educated and well-paid, he chooses to reside in the poor Southeast quadrant. He is very involved in the community, most notably volunteering at St. Anthony's Parish in his neighborhood.
Cross is in the middle of his training at the FBI when he is assigned to work on a kidnapping case. A federal judge's wife has been kidnapped, and Cross discovers that her kidnapping fits the pattern of other recent kidnappings.
A Russian mobster known as "the Wolf" has been kidnapping people and selling them into sexual slavery. In addition to the judge's wife, his subordinates also kidnap a housewife, and several male college students for clients.
Though Cross is able to identify the Wolf as a key player in the human trafficking ring, his true identity and whereabouts remain a mystery. The only method of contacting him is through a high-tech, secure website, and any person the FBI manages to take into custody ends up dead at the hands of a mole.
Eventually, with the assistance of the New York City Police Department, Central Intelligence Agency, Secret Service, and the Russian government, the FBI is able to arrest a man by the name of Andrei Prokopev. Though the FBI believes him to be the Wolf, it is revealed at the very end of the novel that the Wolf is, in fact, still at large.
A sequel, London Bridges has been made featuring the Wolf and Cross face off again, but the Wolf asks for Geoffrey Shafer's assistance in defeating Cross. Shafer was one of Alex's oldest foes, who in fact, ruined his life.
On March 1, 1932, Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr., the 20-month-old son of aviators Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, was abducted from his crib in the upper floor of the Lindberghs' home, Highfields, in East Amwell, New Jersey, United States. On May 12, the child's corpse was discovered by a truck driver by the side of a nearby road.
Simón Trinidad is the alias of Juvenal Ovidio Ricardo Palmera Pineda, a high-ranking member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and reputedly the first high-ranking member of that guerrilla group to be captured. "Simón Trinidad" is currently serving a 60-year sentence in solitary confinement in the United States at ADX Florence "Supermax" prison in Florence, Colorado.
Runaway Jury is a 2003 American legal thriller film directed by Gary Fleder and starring John Cusack, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, and Rachel Weisz. An adaptation of John Grisham's 1996 novel The Runaway Jury, the film pits lawyer Wendell Rohr (Hoffman) against shady jury consultant Rankin Fitch (Hackman), who uses unlawful means to stack the jury with people sympathetic to the defense. Meanwhile, a high-stakes cat-and-mouse game begins when juror Nicholas Easter (Cusack) and his girlfriend Marlee (Weisz) appear to be able to sway the jury into delivering any verdict they want in a trial against a gun manufacturer. The film was released October 17, 2003.
Along Came a Spider is a crime thriller novel, and the first novel in James Patterson's series about forensic psychologist Alex Cross. First published in 1993, its success has led to twenty six sequels as of 2021. It was adapted into a film of the same name in 2001, starring Morgan Freeman as Cross.
The Husband is a novel by the best-selling author Dean Koontz, released in 2006. Focus Features, in conjunction with Random House Films, has announced that a film adaptation has been greenlit.
Mary, Mary is the 11th novel by James Patterson featuring the former Washington, D.C. homicide detective and forensic psychiatrist and current FBI agent Alex Cross.
London Bridges is the tenth novel by James Patterson featuring the former Washington, D.C. homicide detective and forensic psychiatrist and current FBI agent Alex Cross. Published in 2004.
Wolves Eat Dogs is a crime novel by Martin Cruz Smith, set in Russia and Ukraine in the year 2004. It is the fifth novel to feature Investigator Arkady Renko and the first one taking place in Russia during the new, independent (post-Soviet) era.
Along Came a Spider is a 2001 American neo-noir psychological thriller film directed by Lee Tamahori. It is the second installment in the Alex Cross film series and a sequel to the 1997 film Kiss the Girls, with Morgan Freeman and Jay O. Sanders reprising their roles as detective Alex Cross and FBI-agent Kyle Craig. The screenplay by Marc Moss was adapted from the 1993 novel of the same title by James Patterson, but many of the key plot elements of the book were eliminated. The film was a box office success, although receiving mixed reviews from critics.
Double Cross is the 13th novel in the Alex Cross series featuring Detective Alex Cross by James Patterson. It was released on November 13, 2007.
Adam, a novel by author Ted Dekker, was released on April 1, 2008. This book is not directly tied to any others, as many of Dekker's novels are.
Alex Konanykhin is an entrepreneur and former banker. He started his career by founding a private bank in Russia towards the end of communist rule. Konanykhin is sometimes spelled as Konanykhine.
Cross Country is the 14th novel in the Alex Cross series by James Patterson. According to the Library Journal it was the second most borrowed fiction book in United States libraries in 2009.
Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter is a German convicted murderer and impostor. Born in West Germany, he is currently serving a prison sentence in the U.S. state of California. After moving to the U.S. in his late teens, Gerhartsreiter lived under a succession of aliases while variously claiming to be an actor, a director, an art collector, a physicist, a ship's captain, a negotiator of international debt agreements, and an English aristocrat.
Kyle Craig is a fictional character and antagonist in James Patterson's series of novels featuring Washington, D.C. detective Alex Cross. Craig, a Special Agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is initially a close friend of Cross and assists the detective in his high-profile investigations, and also occasionally asks Cross for help with his own cases. However, in the 2000 novel Roses Are Red, Craig is revealed to be a criminal who calls himself "The Mastermind", having organized a series of brutal bank robberies and murders. He is eventually brought to justice by Cross. From Violets Are Blue onwards, Craig is one of Cross' most formidable adversaries. In the film adaptations of Patterson's novels Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider, Craig is played by Jay O. Sanders.
Cross Fire is the 17th book of James Patterson's Alex Cross series. In the novel, Kyle Craig has come back for one final scare to finally kill Alex Cross, but Alex has a special day ahead of him, one that concerns Bree and his relationship. The novel was released in hardcover, paperback, and audio book on November 15, 2010. It was preceded by I, Alex Cross and was followed by Kill Alex Cross. The book sees Alex marrying Bree after proposing to her in the previous book; the book also sees the final appearance of Kyle Craig, who dies by shooting an oxygen tank, killing him and two cops before he can be sent to prison again by Alex.
Kill Alex Cross is the 18th novel in the Alex Cross series by James Patterson, following fictional detective Alex Cross as he tries to solve two crimes – one involving the president's kidnapped children and the other a case of someone poisoning the water supply.
Alex Cross is a crime, mystery, and thriller novel series written by James Patterson. The series focuses on Metropolitan Police Department detective and father Alex Cross as he faces threats to his family and the city of Washington, D.C. Supporting characters include two of Cross's children, Damon, and Janelle, as well as his grandmother Nana Mama. The series is usually narrated in first-person perspective by Alex Cross, and occasionally from the villains' point of view in third-person.
John Sampson is a fictional character in the mystery novel series Alex Cross and is one of the main characters.