Black Friday

I recently read Black Friday by Alex Kava. This is the 7th book in a series about Maggie O'Dell, a profiler.

The story starts with three college students and friends at the Mall of America. Rebecca and Patrick came with Dixon to Minnesota for the Thanksgiving holiday. While at the mall, Dixon intends to join two of his childhood friends in a little "big business mayhem" by carrying backpacks around that will disrupt computers and cause the business to loose money. On the busiest day of the year, this electronic blackout will cause people to realize how vulnerable we are to terrorist attacks. These three were offered a new IPod for their troubles, only as they are about to begin, Dixon finds out his grandma is in the hospital and talks Rebecca into taking his spot, giving her the IPod. The backpacks do not contain jamming devices but bombs which were detonated by remote control.

Maggie O'Dell is called in to determine what terrorist group may be behind these suicide bombers. As the authorities are sifting through the wreckage, looking for clues, an anonymous tip is given to the media saying that Patrick is one of the bombers who has gotten away. We find out that he is Maggie's step brother which now makes this case very personal for her.

The Project Manager is very proud of his skills to shake things up and terrorize. He planned the bombing and has more up his sleeve. He is so good in fact, he got Timothy McVeigh to take the fall for his execution of the Oklahoma City bombings. He has more planned, too.

I thought this sounded like a great concept. America proves to be susceptible to attack and we seem to have a very short term memory, as a nation. I did not realize this was part of a series, so I think I lost out on a lot of the nuances of the relationships. Maggie had apparently been poisoned in a previous book, and lost her mentor/boss. It seems she has a relationship with her doctor, but this was brief and not quite clear at the beginning of the book. As she traveled to Minnesota, she runs into Nick Morelli, which she seems to have a past with, although again it wasn't really clear. Also, we read a lot about Patrick and his infatuation with Rebecca , Dixon and his grandparents and Rebecca's past, however the writing digresses without coming back to bring closure to any of these story lines. The book seemed to be going in one direction, only to jump to another plane altogether and move in a different direction. Perhaps I need to have started with the first in this series to be able follow, which is a shame. I think books in a series should be able to stand on their own and be able to draw you in to the point you want to go back and read from the beginning. I didn't get that with this book.

I give this 3 out of 5 stars.