Starting in the Middle

Most of the books James Patterson co-authors have recurring characters.  These characters have love interests, personal foibles, messy pasts, and complicated situations to resolve.  Those situations are usually resolved within the confines of one book.  The casual reader might miss some of the nuances in the back stories, but the plot can thicken quite nicely anyway. 

Mike Lupica's prose is sharp, pointed, not sentimental even when tears are involved. He creates people you might meet in the grocery store or in a line up or at a serious doctor's appointment.  The friendships he describes feel real, as so does the loathing.

That's all well and good, but Hard to Kill seems to have forgotten that time has passed since I read the first book in the series, and that I've read lots of other books in between.  I vaguely remembered the dastardly defendant, but the ins and outs of his comings and going and intersections with law enforcement and victims and siblings have left me floundering.

I googled the series.  The first book was published August 27, 2024.  Hard to Kill, the second book, was published May 10, 2025.  I began to forgive myself for forgetting the details of the crime in the first book which is inextricably entwined with the crime(s) in the second book.  Eleven months have passed.  

And then I began to laugh.  Apparently I'm not the only person who was flummoxed.  Perhaps the authors heard from them.  In any event and for whatever reason, the third installment was published July 21, 2025, a mere nine weeks after the second arrived.  

Now I'm going to find the first and third books on-line or in the library.  I'll close this one until then.  I want to enjoy it and starting in the middle is not the best way to do that.