2008-04-18 A fantastic pre-Alex Cross/WMC novel from Patterson

'Black Market' (also known as Black Friday) is one of the first of James Patterson's many novels, originally published back in 1986. The story begins in the early hours of a cold December day in New York City where several of the biggest banks and investment and financial buildings on Wall Street are blown up by a terrorist organisation called The Green Band, a highly skilled group of Vietnam veterans who have a personal vendetta against the United States and plan to attack in one of the worst ways possible, by causing a complete financial crash where literally billions of dollars will be lost. FBI agent Archer Carroll and Wall Street lawyer Caitlin Dillon are on the case to find out the identities and the motive behind Green Band's terrorist acts.

Out of all of the pre-Alex Cross and Women's Murder Club novels, this is definitely the best (with Hide & Seek at a very close second). The action is fast and exciting and the usual short chapters kept me flying through the pages until I got to the end. There's the usual Patterson twist in the last few pages that was a real shock in the story when I read it. The bombings of the Wall Street buildings is scarily like the 9/11 events, with America being in a total crisis as they hadn't had a terrorist attack on them before. Being written in the mid-80's some of the facts about Wall Street are now a bit out of date, but this aside it is a great read from the master of the thriller genre and one that anyone who has read and enjoyed any of Patterson's more recent novels should enjoy.