Part of the motive of serial killers is simply to prove that they are better--better than their victims and better than the police investigating them. Mastermind, the villain of James Patterson's new thriller Roses are Red, goes one better--he does not even have to do all his own killings, simply manipulate the bank robbers he gathers for progressively more vicious hostage takings into ever more bloody massacres. Psychologist-investigator Alex is already coping with the aftermath of a previous case--the woman he loves has been so badly traumatised by the killer who abducted her for months that she does not want to be near him or their child; and now he finds himself dealing with a case where completely arbitrary decisions about who lives and who dies are the order of the day. Mastermind is ahead of the game each step of the way--this is a novel about the pain of betrayal as well as the pain of responsibility; Alex is a flawed, clever man driven near to breaking point by the knowledge that, if he guesses things wrong, people will die, and that they may die anyway just to spite him. --Roz Kaveney
