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Read Black Friday (2000)

Black Friday (2000)

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Rating
3.62 of 5 Votes: 3
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ISBN
0446609323 (ISBN13: 9780446609326)
Language
English
Publisher
vision

Black Friday (2000) - Plot & Excerpts

Black Friday is one of James Patterson's earlier works. NYC is under siege by a secret militia group calling itself Green Band. The stock market is thrown into chaos when Green Band blows up several Wall Street institutions, essentially creating an economic world war. The entire first half of the book was unbearable. My lack of interest in Wall Street and anything to do with the Stock Market just made a large portion of the book hard to understand and follow. About half ways through, when it was discovered who Green Band was, the book began to pick up pace. The biggest part that was confusing to me was, how did they figure out who Green Band was? The huge discovery that led them to the "bad guys" literally came out of no where. The first half of the book they are searching left and right for any potential leads without finding any. Then suddenly, with seemingly no clues, they are on the right track (which, I must say, has nothing to do with the ideas they were looking at during the first half of the book). That being said, the ending was great. A couple of carefully placed twists and turns made the last half of the book well worth the read. The first half of the book gets 1 star, while the last half of the book gets 5 stars. There was too much stock market details for my taste and too little of a transition into how they got on the right track.

A group of disaffected Viet Nam veterans/cab drivers calling themselves "Green Band" blows up several buildings in a carefully orchestrated attack on Wall Street. In the chaos they steal a large number of securities which they plan to sell in an attempt to ruin the American economy. Archer Carroll, a US anti-terrorist agent for the DIA(?) teams up with the beautiful and multi-talented Caitlin Dillon of the SEC in trying to track down the mysterious organization that doesn't seem to have any specific demands. There's plenty of action, but none of it's very interesting, and the story never really hooked me. I finished it more out of curiosity than anything else (and lack of something else to read). And the characters, while sympathetic, aren't very well-developed. I couldn't understand why Carroll, who supposedly had a whole team of men reporting to him, was the only one who was working on a case of such importance. Also, there's a minor Brazilian character at one point, but she speaks Spanish (I thought everyone knew they speak Portuguese in Brazil)!?! Overall, marginally interesting, but I'm sure you can find something better to read.

What do You think about Black Friday (2000)?

#44Pretty sure this was my first James Patterson book, but I have 4 more in the pile I inherited so I am about to get to know him VERY well!! I like his writing style as it lends itself very well to my desire for short chapters and keeping background information simple. When I pick up a thriller/mystery book I just want interesting/intelligent characters, a plausible plot & then some good action with just enough twists to make it surprising. Patterson met all the criteria for me *expect* for the Plausible Plot. Anything that ends up being about some secretive group of puppet masters supposedly running the world for years and managing to amass ridiculous power & wealth and I get a wee bit bored. Plausibility lost. However, the characters and action kind of make up for that weakness and I really really did love the ending.
—Christina

Early James Patterson trying (and failing) to write a Ludlum/Clancy-esque thriller. The conspiracy was actually very interesting and well done (albeit very 1980sish) but Patterson bogs his tale down with cliches, love stories and cliched love stories that are inessential to the plot. This is but the second Patterson book I've read but his other one followed the same vein. Baldacci is like that too. It just doesn't work for me guys, two beautiful people (including a usually underwritten female character) falling in love while the world crumbles around them. But Patterson and Baldacci are two of the best-selling writers in the world so what do I know?
—Jake

This Patterson crime-suspense novel from the late eighties is an interesting read today from our perspective in the next century. The plot of a terrorist attack on New York City and the crash of the stock market and hence the world economy somehow seemed much more apocalyptic thirty years ago than it does today---probably because it all happened and we lived through it. Not in the same way of course, or in the same order and not by the same enemy and with a totally different outcome---somehow a secret government cabal in the computer age seems even more difficult to buy---but many of the things he imagined have taken place. The world has suffered, people have lost their lives and many other dangerous events undoubtedly lie ahead but we have stumbled along and survived. I guess that shows that mankind always looks into the abyss of change and shudders but predicting the outcome is a challenge. I recently saw a cartoon of a robed man standing on a street corner holding a sign with the cliché citation “The End Is Near”. He was happily explaining to passers-by that it was his fifteenth anniversary on that corner. I guess that says it all.
—Keith

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