Alex Cross (abridged)

Detective Alex Cross is pulled out of a family celebration and given the awful news that his niece, Caroline, has been found brutally murdered. Cross vows to hunt down the killer, and soon learns that Caroline was mixed up in one of Washington's wildest scenes. And she was not this killer's only victim.

Detective Alex Cross and Bree’s wedding plans are put on hold when Alex is called to the scene of the perfectly executed assassination of two of Washington D.C.'s most hated public figures: a corrupt congressman and an underhanded lobbyist. As more crooked politicians are picked off with similar long-range shots, public opinion is divided – is the marksman a vigilante or a hero?Media coverage of the case explodes, and the FBI assigns agent Max Siegel to the investigation.

Detective Alex Cross is one of the first on the scene of the biggest case he’s ever been part of. The President’s son and daughter have been abducted from their school – an impossible crime, but somehow the kidnapper has done it. Alex does everything he can but is shunted to the fringes of the investigation. Someone powerful doesn’t want Cross too close. A deadly contagion in the DC water supply threatens to cripple the capital, and Alex sees the looming shape of the most devastating attack the United States has ever experienced.

The president's son and daughter are abducted, and Detective Alex Cross is one of the first on the scene. But someone very high-up is using the FBI, Secret Service, and CIA to keep him off the case and in the dark. A deadly contagion in the water supply cripples half of the capital, and Alex discovers that someone may be about to unleash the most devastating attack the United States has ever experienced. As his window for solving both crimes narrows, Alex makes a desperate decision that goes against everything he believes....

Detective Alex Cross arrests renowned plastic surgeon Elijah Creem for sleeping with teenage girls. Now, his life ruined, Creem is out of jail, and he's made sure that no one will recognize him - by giving himself a new face. A young woman is found hanging from a sixth-floor window, and Alex is called to the scene. The victim recently gave birth, but the baby is nowhere to be found. Before Alex can begin searching for the missing newborn and the killer, he's called to investigate a second crime.

Detective Alex Cross arrests renowned plastic surgeon Elijah Creem for sleeping with teenage girls. Now, his life ruined, Creem is out of jail, and he's made sure that no one will recognize him - by giving himself a new face. A young woman is found hanging from a sixth-floor window, and Alex is called to the scene. The victim recently gave birth, but the baby is nowhere to be found. Before Alex can begin searching for the missing newborn and killer, he's called to investigate a second crime.

Alex Cross’s whole world is crashing down around him. He has been hunted, stalked like prey, his predator priming himself for the kill. Cross has devoted his life to protecting others. Now he’s unable to protect even those closest to him. As a police detective, he has made many enemies, but never like this. Everything he loves is being taken from him. Soon he will have nothing and no one left.

Detective Alex Cross is a family man at heart--nothing matters more to him than his children, his grandmother, and his wife Bree. His love of his family is his anchor, and gives him the strength to confront evil in his work. One man knows this deeply, and uses Alex's strength as a weapon against him in the most unsettling and unexpected novel of James Patterson's career.

Detective Alex Cross is being stalked by a psychotic genius, forced to play the deadliest game of his career. Cross's family - his loving wife Bree, the wise and lively Nana Mama, and his precious children - have been ripped away. Terrified and desperate, Cross must give this mad man what he wants if he has any chance of saving the most important people in his life. The stakes have never been higher: What will Cross sacrifice to save the ones he loves?

Detective Alex Cross is being stalked by a psychotic genius, forced to play the deadliest game of his career. Cross's family – his loving wife Bree, the wise and lively Nana Mama, and his precious children--have been ripped away. Terrified and desperate, Cross must give this mad man what he wants if he has any chance of saving the most important people in his life. The stakes have never been higher: What will Cross sacrifice to save the ones he loves?

When his cousin is accused of a heinous crime, Alex Cross returns to his North Carolina hometown for the first time in more than three decades. As he tries to prove his cousin's innocence in a town where everyone seems to be on the take, Cross unearths a family secret that forces him to question everything he's ever known.

Shots ring out in the early morning hours in the suburbs of Washington, DC. When the smoke clears, a prominent police official lies dead, leaving the city's police force scrambling for answers. Under pressure from the mayor, Alex Cross steps into the leadership vacuum to crack the case. But before Cross can make any headway, a brutal crime wave sweeps across the region. The deadly scenes share only one common thread - the victims are all criminals.

Alex Cross has never been on the wrong side of the law - until now. Charged with gunning down followers of his nemesis Gary Soneji in cold blood, Cross is being turned into the poster child for trigger-happy cops who think they're above the law. Cross knows it was self-defense. But will a jury see it that way? As Cross fights for his professional life and his freedom, his former partner, John Sampson, brings him a gruesome, titillating video tied to the mysterious disappearances of several young girls.

A leader has fallen, and Alex Cross joins the procession of mourners from Capitol Hill to the White House. Then a sniper's bullet strikes a target in the heart of DC. Alex Cross's wife, Bree Stone, newly elevated chief of DC detectives must solve the case or lose her position. The Secret Service and the FBI deploy as well in the race to find the shooter. Alex is tasked by the new President to lead an investigation unprecedented in scale and scope. But is the sniper's strike only the beginning of a larger attack on the nation?

In a Virginia penitentiary, Alex Cross and his partner, John Sampson, witness the execution of a killer they helped convict. Hours later, they are called to the scene of a copycat crime. A note signed "M" rests on the corpse. "You messed up big time, Dr. Cross." Was an innocent man just put to death? Alex soon realizes he may have much to answer for, as "M" lures the detective out of the capital to the sites of multiple homicides, all marked with distressingly familiar details --details that conjure up decades-old cases.