Kill Me If You Can Review

Kill me if you can is a semi thrilling thriller told in the 1st person point of view by Matthew Bannon a struggling ex wartime marine turned artist who also moonlights as a contract killer named the ghost.

The ghost is said to be the best at what he does because no one knows who he is. He supersedes his moral dilemma by only killing other killers.

The story takes place in New York city but also spans to Europe. The premise of the story is Matthew/the ghost is hired by Vadim Chukov to kill Walter Zelvas. He has been stealing diamonds from the international diamond syndicate who happen to all be Russian. Walter is trying to leave the country with 30 million dollars worth of diamonds because he found out his two timing girlfriend is his bosses girlfriend and daughter. Yes, I said daughter (gross) and the ghost has to stop him. After dispatching with Zelvas the ghost switches to his alter ego so he can himself steal the diamonds. After carefully getting the diamonds appraised he decides to take his newly acquired diamonds and his newly acquired girlfriend/college art professor, Kathrine Sanborne, to Paris on a romantic trip so he can secretly sell his blood diamonds. All this time he is being hunted by bad cops and one bad-ass female killer/super model named Marta krall. He also unwittingly is hired to kill himself because no one can figure out that he is actually the ghost (drrrrrrrr). While in Paris they are tracked down by Marta the sexy vixen killer and she is quickly dispatched by the mild mannered killer artist as he throws her off the hotel balcony and into the canal where she swims away. Adrenaline pumping Matthew decides to let Kathrine in on all his secrets only to be shot down and morally bashed by the same girl who is getting it on with one of her college students. Matthew has no choice of course but to let her go and continue on to Amsterdam to sell his diamonds. When he finally does he heads home only to find his now ex has been kidnapped by the baddies and he has to get her back. He gets the help of some ex marine buddies and happy endings ensue.

The book is written in the all to familiar Patterson style of 2 page chapters which have worked for him in the past. This time I felt it to be to fast without much detail and character development. The first twist of Matthew actually being the ghost happens midway through the book and kind of grabbed my attention and made it exciting. The second twist of the Russian diamond boss humping his daughter was quite disturbing and made me sick to my stomach and the only thing it did for the story was to give Zelvas a reason to leave the country with the diamonds. Which makes me a little sympathetic to Zelvas's dilemma.

Matthew as the struggling artist ex marine and the contract killer the ghost, wasn't all the believable to me but was about the only semi original idea in the whole book. Russian mobsters, hot sexy woman killers, love interest being kidnapped and then in turn being saved is all to familiar to me and has been done way to many times. It screams to the Patterson assembly line book writing where he publishes a book every 10 seconds. I guess its working for him but I wouldn’t suggest this book to anyone even though I love his Cross series. I give this book 1 star because sexy contract killers are always good.