Private Royals by James Patterson and Rees Jones

From the workshop of James Patterson comes ‘Private Royals’. Written by Rees Jones, it comes after twelve novels in the Private series, but no prior knowledge is assumed - which was good for me.

The plot itself is straightforward, the daughter of a Duke is kidnapped, and Jack Morgan and his team of investigators have just twenty-four hours to save her before her captors throw her decapitated head out in front of the Queen at the Trooping of the Guard parade. For a crime fiction and thriller fan, this is quite a synopsis.

Immediately, however, I was concerned to see an ‘About this book’ section. Surely no standalone short story needs this? And this didn’t. Especially not before a prologue.

Anyway, as one would expect from Patterson, the plot is gripping with the right amount of twists, turns and action set-pieces, but the writing is aimed at the lowest common denominator, with plenty of telling rather than showing. Too often I felt like shouting ‘I get it, you don’t need to add an extra sentence to spell it out!’, and having not read any Rees Jones before I didn’t know if it was his style or part of the brief.

To give Jones some credit, though, I suspect it is the latter as all the Book Shots series entries that I have read suffer from a similar issue, and that leads to the bigger question of whether it is an issue.

By utilising this technique, it makes reading more accessible to those who may not see themselves as readers, offering an entry into the world of fiction and, for that, is good. The compromise, though, is that it makes a page-turning story a more passive rather than immersive read.

In summary, ‘Private Royals’ was quite an addictive read, but I wouldn’t say it is a good book. But for a read that you can breeze through expending no mental effort, this will do.