This wasn't the way I wanted the day to start. 'It's too early in the morning to see the meat wagon,' I muttered. 'If I wasn't up, I am now,' I said into the phone receiver. Nana Mama would have done even worse to us if she'd known about our crime spree. At the time, we had no idea that old Park would have shot us dead over a pilfered pack of Chesterfields. Sampson and I have been best friends since we were nine years old and took up shoplifting at Park's Corner Variety store near the projects. Sampson knows me better than my own kids. The call turned out to be from my partner in crime, John Sampson. As the saying goes, if I'd known I was going to live that long, I would have taken better care of myself. I hobbled into the kitchen, sidestepping more toys on morning-stiff legs. That's not exactly what was said, but it went something like that. No sense means nonsense in my dictionary.'

You might as well get it yourself,' my testy grandmother called back. 'Nana? Can you get that?' I called from the porch. I play all three games of misfortune regularly. Maybe I'd won the D.C., or Virginia, or Maryland lottery and they'd forgotten to call the night before. I was prepared to sacrifice a little for 'An American in Paris.' It was just past 5 A.M., and cold as a meat locker on the porch. I was playing Gershwin on our slightly out-of-tune, formerly grand piano. The small, narrow room was cluttered with mildewing winter coats, work boots, and wounded children's toys. Read ExcerptĮARLY ON THE MORNING of December 21, 1992, I was the picture of contentment on the sun porch of our house on 5th Street in Washington, D.C. And now, reader, he’s about to become yours. Gary Soneji is every parent’s worst nightmare. Soneji has outsmarted the FBI, the Secret Service, and the police. Because Gary Soneji, who wants to commit the “crime of the century,” is playing at the top of his game. What is she running from? What is her secret?Īlex Cross and Jezzie Flanagan are about to have a forbidden love affair-at the worst possible time for both of them. She rides her black BMW motorcycle at speeds of no less than 100 mph. Blond, mysterious, seductive, she’s got an outer shell that’s as tough as it is beautiful. Jezzie Flanagan is the first woman ever to hold the highly sensitive job as supervisor of the Secret Service in Washington. But he also has two adorable kids of his own, and they are his own special vulnerabilities. He’s a tough guy from a tough part of town who wears Harris Tweed jackets and likes to relax by banging out Gershwin tunes on his baby grand piano. and looks like Muhammad Ali in his prime.

Discover the classic thriller that launched the #1 detective series of the past twenty-five years, now one of PBS’s “100 Great American Reads”Īlex Cross is a homicide detective with a Ph.D.

Along Came a Spider by James Patterson