Copyright 2014 by James Patterson. Published by Grand Central Publishing, New York.

Yes, another book where James Patterson slapped his name on someone else’s work. This time the actual writer is Michael Ledwidge. You can tell that Patterson didn’t write this one because it is science fiction and Patterson doesn’t do science fiction. I won’t be surprised if I next see his name on a romance novel. He apparently is willing to lend his name to any literary venture, for a buck.

But unlike Sunday at Tiffany’s this one isn’t pure dreck. It isn’t great, but it has some value. Enough value that I was able to finish the book and enough value that CBS decided it was good enough to be a TV series. That isn’t a high bar, but the plot is sufficiently interesting to justify it.

The plot. The world is going to hell in a handbasket because animals all around the world are aggressively attacking humans, often in pack behavior unlike anything ever seen before. This weird behavior, which evolved over a decade, was noticed early on by a few biologists, among them Jackson Oz who became alarmed and tried to warn others of an impending ecological catastrophe. But no one listened. Oz was ostracized (Oztracized?) as a kook. But the attacks worsened until people were living in bunkers. Oz finally got some ears.

I won’t tell you what was making the animals go bonkers. I think the cause is plausible. But it comes to Oz in an instant. The last 50 pages reveal the reason and the initial attempts of world government to deal with the crisis. But the first 350 pages are largely devoted to detailing horrific animal attacks. That makes for salacious reading – and probably a TV series that can get good ratings – but it isn’t great literature. I also object to Patterson’s (ok, Ledwidge’s) use of tense: past tense is used to provide the narrative involving Oz and others trying to figure out what is happening and present tense is used to document the attacks. Seems like a cheap literary conceit to me.

So not dreck. But not very good either.

5 out of 10.

Copyright 2021 by David Benjamin. Published by Last Kid Books, Madison WI.

First, the usual disclaimer: David Benjamin is one of my oldest and best friends. Also, this book is nominated for a “best comedy book” award by the Independent Book Publishers Association and, if it wins, I will be accepting the award in his place. So, yes, I am biased. But I also know a good book when I read it and this is a good book.

Like several other Benjamin books, this one is semi-autobiographical. The protagonist in this book is a 12-year-old altar boy named – drum roll please – David Benjamin. He is in 7th grade and is acquainted with a 14-year-old eighth grader named Vinny. Because Vinny is morbidly obese, smelly and generally disgusting, everyone calls him “Fat Vinny”. But Vinny has some social skills, is a bit of an entrepreneur and seems to always have more money than any other kid at St Mary’s. Partly because he is physically intimidating and partly because he has funds to buy temporary loyalty, Fat Vinny is able to get David involved in his schemes. And in the eighth grade Fat Vinny’s main scheme is winning the love of a young novice nun named Sister Patrice.

Forbidden love, indeed.

As an example of Vinny’s approach to courting, consider this “pome” that he wrote for her:

Your body is a temple.
I want to wurship there.
I'll tear away you wemple.
And stroke your golden hair.

Yeah, I had to look up “wemple” too. He meant “wimple” – a medieval head covering for a nun. Some of his other “pomes” are more salacious but because I don’t want to become R-rated I will not include them here.

This is a coming-of-age book, but, surprisingly, is more about the coming of age of David Benjamin than Fat Vinny. Some of his observations about the unexpected “snot-like” emissions from his penis after seeing a girl’s bare butt are hilarious.

9 out of 10.