The Season of the Machete – James Patterson

The Season of the Machete James Patterson
The Season of the Machete by James Patterson
Also by this author: 1st to Die, 2nd Chance, 3rd Degree, The Horsewoman, 4th of July, The 5th Horseman, The 6th Target, 7th Heaven, The 8th Confession, The 9th Judgment
on October 12, 1977
Genres: Fiction, Thriller
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two-stars

Cool and glamorous, they could be a successful couple on a holiday. But Damian and Carrie Rose are psychopathic murderers for hire. Their new venue is a picture-perfect vacation island. Their adversary will be Peter Macdonald, the dashing young American who forsakes a life of leisure for a confrontation with cold-blooded terror. And risks everything only to discover that he alone suspects the hideous truth about the...Season of the Machete.

James Patterson followed up his Edgar Award-winning debut novel, The Thomas Berryman Murder, with a second novel about a sadistic husband-and-wife killing team who will stop at nothing to take down their target. The Season of the Machete is simpler and more straightforward than Patterson’s previous work. He drops any and all literary pretense and gives readers pure 1970s pulp-style fiction. In fact, I’m surprised that The Season of the Machete wasn’t turned into a made for TV movie starring Chuck Norris. That’s the kind of book this is.

San Dominica is a popular tourist destination in the Caribbean that finds itself thrown into chaos as two killers descend on the island with machetes in hand. Patterson shifts perspectives throughout the book, moving from the voice of one victim to the next, keeping readers discombobulated and guessing. Guessing is fine, but the end result is that—because all the POVs keep getting killed off—there’s no real character development or understanding of what’s going on. The reader mainly knows what’s going on only through what the next victim knows, which isn’t much.

When the POV shifts to the killers, Damian and Carrie Rose, we can slowly piece the plot together. They’ve been hired by the mafia to make the murders look like the work of local rebels trying to overthrow the government. With the government in chaos, the mafia can step in and rule. Because the reader never really develops any sort of connection to the characters, the story ultimately falls flat. It would’ve made for a better bad slasher movie than a novel.

two-stars

3.4

Main Characters

3.0/10

Secondary Characters

2.0/10

Plot

3.0/10

Theme

3.0/10

Atmosphere

3.0/10

Pacing

4.0/10

Writing Quality

3.0/10

Passion

4.0/10

Engagment

3.0/10

Goodreads Opinion

6.5/10