Author: James Patterson; Mike Lupica
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Series: Jane Smith #2
Genre: Mystery/Thrillers
Format: Kindle ARC
No. of Pages: 384
Date of Publication: July 29, 2024
My Rating: 5 Stars
Jane Smith is being hailed as James Patterson’s greatest character yet, a tough-as-nails attorney up against a relentless killer. Hard to Kill features possibly the author’s most stunning twist ever.
Attorney kJane Smith is mounting an impossible criminal defense.
Her client, Rob Jacobson, is the unluckiest of the unlucky. No sooner is he accused of killing a family of three in the Hamptons than a second family is gunned down.
It’s not double jeopardy. It’s not double murder. It’s double triple homicide.
Jane’s career has spanned from NYPD beat cop to Hamptons courtroom. She’s tough to beat. She’s even tougher to kill.
The defense may never rest.
MY THOUGHTS:
Jane Smith is a lot of things. For one thing she has been called “Jane effing Smith”. She is in love for the first time in her life, despite being twice divorced. And, she is about to defend a man who most likely is a serial killer. She is defending Rob Jacobson for the second time. One thing Jane refuses to listen to, telling Jacobson she does not want to know, and that is whether he is guilty or innocent.
Jane’s newest case is a triple homicide, just like her first with Jacobson, and he was found innocent. However, Jacobson is not an easy client. By any means. But, that’s okay. Jane is no pushover. While Jane might have a perfect record when it comes to her legal career, life hasn’t been so perfect. In fact, Hard to Kill is book two in the Jane Smith series, with the first book, 12 Months to Live, and with a stage four cancer diagnosis, time is definitely not on her side.
Jane is excellent when it comes to how she conducts herself in the courtroom, if not a bit irreverent at times. However, her investigator and best friend Jimmy is always by her side, and keeps her as honest as possible. I want more of Jane and my Kindle is at the ready for the next book in this fabulous series.
Many thanks to Little, Brown and Company and to NetGalley for this ARC for review. This is my honest opinion.
The son of an insurance salesman and a schoolteacher, Patterson grew up in Newburgh, New York, and began casually writing at the age of nineteen. In 1969, he graduated from Manhattan College. He was given a full ride to Vanderbilt University’s graduate program in English but dropped out after a year, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to continue reading and writing for pleasure if he became a college professor.
Instead, he moved to New York to become a junior copywriter for the advertising agency J. Walter Thompson, eventually becoming CEO of its North American company.
In 1976, while still working for J. Walter Thompson, Patterson published his first novel, The Thomas Berryman Number, with Little, Brown and Company. After being turned down by thirty-one publishers, it won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel. Patterson’s 1993 novel, Along Came a Spider, his first novel to feature Alex Cross, was also his first New York Times bestseller in fiction.
In 2001, Morgan Freeman starred as Alex Cross in a film adaptation of Along Came a Spider, and Tyler Perry also played the character in the 2012 film Alex Cross. A film adaptation of Patterson’s middle-grade novel Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life was released in theaters in October 2016.
For his initiatives to help kids become passionate readers and for his philanthropic efforts, Patterson was awarded the National Book Foundation’s 2015 Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community.
James Patterson has donated more than one million books to students, emphasizing some of the most under-resourced schools and youth programs in the country. In 2015, Patterson donated $1.75 million to public school libraries throughout the United States, $1 million to independent bookstores, and a further $250,000 in holiday bonuses to individual bookstore employees. He also gave $1 million to independent bookstores in 2014.
Patterson has recently donated over $26 million to his and his wife’s alma maters—the University of Wisconsin, Vanderbilt University, and Manhattan College—and he has established over four hundred Teacher Education Scholarships at twenty-four colleges and universities throughout the country. Patterson has also donated over 650,000 books to U.S. soldiers at home and overseas.
In May 2015, Patterson launched a new children’s book imprint at Little, Brown, called JIMMY Patterson, that is unwaveringly focused on one goal: turning kids into lifelong readers. This imprint also provides resources, strategies, and programs to serve teachers, parents, librarians, and booksellers. Patterson invests proceeds from the sales of JIMMY Patterson Books in pro-reading initiatives.
Patterson has also founded ReadKiddoRead.com, a website designed to help parents, teachers, and librarians ignite a new generation’s excitement for reading. Awarded the National Book Foundation’s Innovations in Reading Prize and the American Library Association’s Great Websites for Kids, the site features thoughtful book reviews from a variety of genres and age ranges, a large and lively Facebook community, and contributions from other authors.
Mr. Patterson’s awards for adult and children’s literature include the Edgar Award, the International Thriller of the Year Award, and the Children’s Choice Award for Author of the Year.
He lives in Palm Beach with his wife, Sue, and his son, Jack.
He began his newspaper career covering the New York Knicks for the New York Post at age 23. He became the youngest columnist ever at a New York paper with the New York Daily News, which he joined in 1977. For more than 30 years, Lupica has added magazines, novels, sports biographies, other non-fiction books on sports, as well as television to his professional resume. For the past fifteen years, he has been a TV anchor for ESPN's The Sports Reporters. He also hosted his own program, The Mike Lupica Show on ESPN2
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