Prime Video’s adaptation of James Patterson’s books hits his appeal.

The most frustrating thing about James Patterson’s 2022 memoir, James Patterson by James Pattersonis that there isn’t really enough in it about James Patterson. Seriously. The book barely touches invention of Alex Crossthe one distinctive and lasting creation of a novelist not known for his originality. Cross is also the hero, played by Aldis Hodge, in a new series from Amazon Prime Video, the third shot at bringing the Washington psychologist and detective to the screen after he was played by Morgan Freeman in 1997’s Kiss the girls and the 2001s A spider came and by Tyler Perry in the 2012s Alex Cross.

Patterson is known for turning out formal thrillers – lively airport time killers with short sentences and chapters – at a truly impressive rate, including books where Patterson provides an outline and a co-author provides the actual text. One thing Patterson touches on in his autobiography is the importance of sketching, a practice he recommends even to elementary school children. His first Alex Cross novel, 1993s A spider camebegan as an overview. “When I went back to start the actual novel,” Patterson wrote in his memoirs, “I realized that I had already written it.”

But while Patterson’s novels lack atmosphere and nuance, A spider came showed an awareness and sensitivity to the role of race in the main character’s life that you just didn’t see in early 90s thrillers, especially thrillers written by white men. Cross is always aware of how his race affects his work and life, from his commitment to remaining in the neighborhood where he grew up to his acute awareness that he and his partner are the only black faces in the lobby of an upscale privateer school when they arrive to investigate the disappearance of two white children. Above all, Cross complains that investigations into crimes committed against black Washingtonians get short shrift compared to crimes with white victims. At some point in A spider cameCross’s grandmother – a very likable character – tells him: “I don’t trust most white people. I want to, but I can’t. Most of them have no respect for us.” It may sound unremarkable today, but in a work of ordinary commercial fiction in 1993 it was extraordinary (Unfortunately, James Patterson by James Patterson (says nothing about how or why he did any of this, other than noting that he had originally taken Cross to be female.)

The best parts of Prime’s Cross series are the ones that pick up this thread in Patterson’s novel and run with it. Aside from a few higher-ups in the police brass, all the significant characters in Cross’s life are Black, and their social world—from family karaoke nights to house parties—feels warm, rich, and authentic.

To this end, showrunner Ben Watkins expertly implements small details and interactions. In one scene, Cross meets with the family of a police brutality activist. They insist their relative has been murdered, possibly by the police themselves, while Cross’ bosses want him – one of the force’s most prominent black detectives – to declare the crime either an accidental overdose or a suicide. Cross believes that the activist was murdered, but by an unknown person. When he asks the dead man’s mother if the victim had used a dating app, she says yes, then specifies that he would have used an app to meet men. The victim’s sister gasps. She had no idea her mother knew her brother was gay, and how could their mother have let him sneak around to hide it from her? “I figured he’d tell me when he was ready,” the older woman replies. It’s an entire family drama in a few lines, and these characters aren’t even central to the show’s plot.

Unfortunately, the show’s beautifully rendered setting has to host a serial killer yarn as insane as anything you’d find in a James Patterson novel, even if it was invented for the show. Patterson’s villains tend to be cackling grotesques whose behavior is so wild you’d think they wouldn’t be able to order a coffee without the white coats being called in to take them off. The show’s bad guy – a smooth-talking, fabulously wealthy bottle blonde played by Ryan Eggold – is identified in the first episode, fondling his scrapbook of famous serial killers and lovingly inserting photos of his own victims, people chosen for their resemblance to his idols. As motifs go, this one is so absurd as to be almost cheesy, which Eggold seems to be aware of.

We all know how that goes, and Cross does not hesitate to follow the well-worn paths of previous serial killer thrillers. Cross has the obligatory murdered wife whose loss haunts him and sparks his quest for justice. He is the first to recognize that a serial killer is at work, and while he intently studies the whiteboard plastered with the victims’ pictures, his partner (a delightful Isaiah Mustafa, aka the Old Spice Guy) shushes their colleagues and announces, “He’s doing his thing!” That thing involves producing such insights as “He thinks he’s an artist. He’s going to leave a masterpiece.” Crime fiction has always loved the idea of ​​profiling – although in real life it has now been largely discredited – because it involves constructing an entire character out of a handful of gestures and traits, just as novelists and actors do.

Meanwhile, someone shady and brilliant has been messing with Cross, invading his home, hacking into his home security system to talk to his children, and leaving a dress once worn by a defendant he helped convict hanging from a tree over his wife’s grave. Maybe it’s connected to the serial killer now dubbed Fanboy by the police, although they complain that “the media is having a field day” with the nickname? These were shop-worn units when Patterson started using them decades ago, and they feel enormously tired next to the vivid scenes of Cross’s own life.

The really interesting mysteries in the Cross has nothing to do with Fanboy or the creep who slipped a recording of a 911 call into the Cross family’s karaoke machine. Hodge’s soulful performance breathes life into even the tired trope of the grieving cop who refuses therapy, but the series could have done a lot more with this paradox, given that Cross is a psychologist himself. A particularly poignant moment comes at a dinner party hosted by Cross’ new love interest (Samantha Walkes), where Cross mutters, “No one wants to defund the police” and is challenged by a stockbroker who has just explained investment strategies. “I don’t understand how a black man could be a cop,” the man says. “I would feel like I was selling out my own people.” Cross responds with a grilling about the affluent, crime-free and mostly white neighborhood where the broker lives, a bit of class friction that generates a comfortable amount of dramatic heat.

These are problems that are less easy to solve than catching a billionaire maniac with a serial killer fetish, and moreover, unlike the maniac, they are also problems that exist in real life. If Cross continues, it should locate the crimes that Cross solves more firmly in the world it has taken so much care to create for him.