The Beach House by James Patterson

From the author's website: Jack Mullen is a driven student of the law. His brother Peter is a servant of the rich, parking the cars of the Hamptons' elite-and perhaps satisfying their more intimate needs as well. Then Peter's body is found on the beach. Jack knows the drowning was no accident, but someones unlimited power and money have bought the cops, the judges, the system. Now Jack is learning a lesson in justice he never got in law school- and his astonishing plan to beat the billionaires will have you reeling-and cheering-to the very last page.


James Patterson is prolific. I am not sure what the co-author thing is all about but he gives another author, Peter de Jonge, partial credit. My mother loved the Alex Cross books; she isn't the only one since a few have been made into movies. I started collecting them with the idea that I would get them all in hand and then read them through in order. That never happened. But then I stumbled across the audio book of The Beach House and since audio books are my current addiction, I snatched it up and started.

This book was read by Gil Bellows. He's a pretty man who has been in a few TV shows I've seen. His voice was pleasant enough except that I found his "woman voice" a little creepy. If he could have just stayed with the male characters, all would have been fine.

The story captured my attention. I didn't get it all figured out before the big reveal so the suspense stayed with me until the end. He drew enough of an image of each character that I was able to differentiate who was who. But he must not have captured the setting as well because although I know it is at the beach ("doh" as Homer would say) and I even know it's the Hampton's, I just still don't have a picture in my head of what that might look like.

This is one of my books for the 2009 Audiobook Challenge too. 6/12 completed on that one - click on the button to see how it's going!