YOU'VE BEEN WARNED
James Patterson and Howard Roughan
Little, Brown and Company
Thriller
ISBN: 9780316014502

• Read an Excerpt

If you're wondering what James Patterson is up to --- what with publishing a great number of books in a given year --- then YOU'VE BEEN WARNED, co-written with Howard Roughan, provides a clue. This stand-alone work, which rests upon the bedrock of a perplexing mystery, is quite different from his Alex Cross novels, which in turn are a world away from the Women's Murder Club books. There's the Maximum Ride series, aimed at young adults (who need an incentive to get their fingers wrapped around a book instead of a game unit). And then we have his other stand-alone efforts, such as THE QUICKIE, THE LAKE HOUSE and SUZANNE'S DIARY FOR NICHOLAS, all of which are different from YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.

Patterson has said, unapologetically, that he sees his job as a writer as propelling the story forward with each and every sentence. This he does, and quite well, in all of his novels for a number of different audiences.

Which brings us to YOU'VE BEEN WARNED, as enigmatic a book as Patterson has ever produced. Kristin Burns is a twenty-something woman living in New York and is in love with her boss, Michael Turnbull, a successful banking executive. There's nothing wrong with that, except for the fact that Kristin is a nanny for Michael's children and Michael is inconveniently married to the thoroughly unlikable and unlovable Penley. Though she's quite fond of the little ones, Kristin doesn't want to be stuck in a job like this her entire life; she would like to be a world-class photographer and Michael's wife, though not necessarily in that order.

Kristin's major problem --- besides being involved with a gentleman who, as Patterson and Roughan subtly let us know, isn't going to be making any changes on the home front anytime soon --- is that her life seems to be coming unraveled. Some of her pictures have acquired an unusual transparency; she's having bizarre nightmares that have her screaming, even when she's awake; she witnesses an odd crime scene at a hotel that apparently never happened; and strangers are coming up to her on the street, warning her away from Michael. Things become weirder and, in a way, more dangerous. Then, before the book ends, they get really bad.

Patterson and Roughan give some fairly strong clues as to where YOU'VE BEEN WARNED is going, but even if you guess the conclusion of this fast-moving work early on, you won't feel cheated. Part mystery, part erotica and part thriller, this is a Patterson novel with something for everyone.

    --- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

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