Private Berlin (A Private Novel, 3) Mass Market Paperback – April 29, 2014

The story unfolds slowly-methodically. Private Berlin is a good match to Private LA. Private tries to work with the police but finds their scope limiting. This missing detective holds many secrets from childhood that need to be exposed. It’s like putting together a black puzzle of 5,000 pieces in the dark. The light comes on slowly…

I have been reading Patterson's novels for a long time, mostly the Women's Murder Club and Private series. I enjoy the fast pace and suspense along with settings and milieus I will never belong to. I call it my "fast food" reading for my commute.I particularly enjoyed reading a story in a German setting, although Berlin will hardly qualify as the most dangerous city in Europe. I was surprised at the detail and the amount of research involved regarding Berlin and the GDR. (I am a reader who will spend as much time on the footnotes, acknowledgements and appendices as I will on the actual story. It's a hangover from academe.) The story of Germany and the fall of the wall has touched and fascinated me, and, like many people, I spent those days glued to the TV, with tears in my eyes. I was watching a unique and important event in history, and I knew it. I think it takes a lot of care to place a story in that context and do it well. For the most part, I think the authors succeeded.Nevertheless, I must pick on one point where I think a little more care would have made this book a truer reflection of the setting and the story. I was very surprised to find the town (not village) of Bad Homburg featured briefly in the story. Weirdly enough, I know that town well. I grew up there. I was also surprised that the authors mentioned the Naturpark Hochtaunus in which I spent many weekends hiking with my father. So I was looking forward to connecting with something I am personally familiar with in any book. However, I was sorely disappointed. Let me tell you a little about Bad Homburg: it is not a village that you can drive through in a few minutes (I'd love to see the authors try), but a mid-size town north of Frankfurt that is home to some of the wealthiest people in Germany. It is also a bath-town, as the "Bad" in the name suggests, which means that people come there for rest cures, to "take the waters" (a healing spring with horribly salty-tasting water), and enjoy the many parks and cultural offerings. Kaiser Wilhelm himself was known to spend time there. The town also is home to a Casino that prides itself on being the "Mother of Monte Carlo." I could go on. Suffice it to say, I was very disappointed at the short and unrealistic shrift Bad Homburg received in the book.Authors: please be advised that your readers are not likely to be completely unfamiliar with the territory covered in your novels. If you are going to mention a town often enough to have a character live there and your investigators go there, please do it some justice. Don't just look at a road map of the Frankfurt area and pick the nearest Autobahn exit north of town and then fabricate some quaint German village stereotype around it. Do your homework and research it a little. At the very least: Google it!

This was probably 1 of the more disturbing James Patterson Novels but oh my god it was so good you are with each Novels but oh my god it was so good you are with each and every character through the whole thing and the Novels but oh my god it was so good you are with each and every character through the whole thing and the last turnaby event is just So surprise you did not see it coming

New characters and the same great action. I love James Patterson books and this one is no exception. In addition to telling a great story, it pulled me into Berlin. I used "Google Earth" and located some of the parks and streets mentioned in the book. It helped to put me into the picture. I've never been to Berlin, but did live in "West Germany" for three years prior to the wall coming down. I was in Pershing missiles in the Army and was restricted as to where I could travel. I can relate when the characters in the book speak of the days during the cold war. I've got "Private London" on my night stand ready to go and am excited to read it and more in the future. Can you tell I'm a fan? That James Patterson devotes his time and money to promote reading among young people makes him one of my heroes. I wish I had read more when I was young.

This story takes place primarily in Germany when the communists took it over and after the Berlin Wall came down. That appealed to me because I was in Germany for a couple of days a few years ago and vividly remember seeing parts of the Berlin Wall and a few of the guard stations that were left standing for tourists to see. We the reader almost immediately learns that a team of investigators are trying to track one of their own who is missing. Mattie, who is associated with the team, had been engaged to Chris - also on the team - has been missing for at least a day. Mattie and her family and a few people become real for me in this story. This book also used an interesting device in which periodically a chapter was written in the first person but without that person letting the reader know the name of who was speaking. This make it both cryptic and kind of scary or "yucky", giving a sense of what kind of person the killer might be.What I didn't particularly like was that quickly, as the investigation increased, too many people and names were introduced without my being able to take them in as real persons or having a sense of who they are. That aspect seems like too many details and overly complicated. Through most of the broad middle of the book, I felt as if Grisham was off his game or that he or Sullivan wrote separately; I was quite disappointed.