Kiss the Girls

What's inside (8 sections)

1. Naomi Cross disappears
2. Casanova and the Gentleman Caller
3. Kate McTiernan fights out
4. Cross, Sampson and the investigation
5. The underground house and the rescue
6. Short chapters, speed, and what wears thin
7. Key takeaways
8. FAQ

I picked up Kiss the Girls because Along Came a Spider left me curious about Alex Cross when he was still early in the series. This one was first published in 1995 by Little, Brown and Company, and the standard hardcover runs 464 pages. It is book 2 in the Alex Cross series. I read it across five evenings, mostly late, with a pencil stuck in the pages because I kept wanting to mark where I would have stopped if the chapters were longer. They rarely are. Most run three or four pages, sometimes less. That rhythm makes it easy to start and hard to pause, which fits a search story but tests your sleep.

The hook is personal. Cross is a Washington detective and psychologist, raising Damon and Jannie with Nana Mama. Then word comes from North Carolina. His niece Naomi Cross, called Scootchie, has vanished from Duke where she studies law. Other young women have vanished near Durham. Someone calling himself Casanova has sent notes. Cross and John Sampson drive south.

Naomi Cross disappears

Naomi matters because Patterson makes her a person before she becomes a case file. She is in law school, serious in class and warm outside it. Classmates say she stayed late to help others brief cases. She calls home and checks on cousins. She has summer plans and a reading list taped to her fridge. One night she does not come back. Her apartment looks undisturbed in a way that scares police. Books stacked. A light left on. No note.

Cross takes it hard in a quiet way. He bows his head at the scene, then gets to work. That mix defines him here. He interviews Naomi's friends with care. He asks about study groups, running routes, who offered rides, who showed up twice without reason. A friend recalls a charming stranger at a party who listened too well. Another recalls a car out of place near campus. One girl remembers a remark that felt off. None of it names a man, but it builds a shape. Young, capable women. Different schools and jobs. All taken without witnesses.

Durham feels tense and tired. Local detectives Nick Ruskin and Davey Sikes are stretched. The FBI drifts in and out. The DEA has a side interest. Parents call daily. Reporters call too. Cross sees how coverage helps and hurts. It brings tips, and it teaches the taker what police know. Sampson puts it plainly. Talk less on camera. Write more in notebooks. Check parking tickets and sick days. Check who asked for maps of steam tunnels in book 1 and who asks for rental cabins here.

What stuck with me is the family distance. Cross lives in D.C. Naomi lives in Durham. He could not watch over her, and he knows it. Nana Mama calls to check on them. Damon and Jannie ask when Scootchie will visit, and Cross must answer without lying. His wife Maria died before this series opened, and grief still sits in the house. Those pages did more for me than the chases, because the fear is specific. A niece who did everything right is gone, and the man hunting for her loves her.

Casanova and the Gentleman Caller

The book runs two threats at once. In North Carolina, the man who calls himself Casanova takes women and keeps them. He sees himself as a lover, not a thug. He is polite at first. He offers help or a ride. Later he talks about collecting exceptional women. Patterson keeps the worst off the page, which I was grateful for. You learn about rules, drugs to keep women groggy, threats to keep them still. You do not get lingering detail. The horror comes from control, not description.

Casanova hides them in rooms underground in woods outside town. He masks his face. He changes moods through masks and music. He tells himself he loves them. He punishes refusal. He also slips. He talks too much. He leaves traces in pharmacies and hardware stores. Neighbors see a normal professional man, so charm covers him in daylight.

On the West Coast, a second killer works under the press name Gentleman Caller. He writes to Los Angeles reporter Beth Lieberman and demands print. He leaves flowers with victims, which gives him the nickname. His tone is colder than Casanova. Where Casanova wants to keep, this man wants to display and frighten a city.

The link builds slowly. Cross finds a note in the Times that mentions Naomi. He calls Lieberman and her editor. He learns the two men have written to each other, East Coast and West Coast, trading ideas and images. They compete and copy. That pen pal connection is the ugliest idea here, and Patterson plays it without sensational scenes. FBI agent Kyle Craig helps trace the letters, and the paper trail matters more than any fingerprint.

If I remember right, the California suspect who surfaces is Dr. William Rudolph, with access to drugs and private space. Kate later helps rule him out as Casanova, which points him toward the other role. Medical access explains sedation. Odd hours fit private practice. Cross keeps saying the men hide inside normal jobs, and Sampson keeps saying to check schedules and rentals. Both prove right.

Kate McTiernan fights out

Kate McTiernan changes the book. She is a young doctor, athletic from kickboxing, stubborn the way trained people get. Casanova takes her from home at night through a ground floor window. She wakes in a strange place with other women nearby. She learns the rules fast. Be quiet. Do not fight in the open. Wait for an opening. She also learns who follows rules and who breaks them, and what each choice costs.

Her escape is the center for me, and Patterson writes it as effort and luck rather than heroics. She resists when she sees a narrow chance, though hurt and drugged. She runs into woods, half lost, with the house behind her. I did not find the staging overdone. She reaches a river through trees and jumps. Cold water, hard current, pain in her limbs. She pulls herself out downstream and keeps moving until she finds help. That one act shifts the case, because for the first time police have a witness who saw inside.

Survival does not make her instantly fine. In hospital she shakes and forgets words. She sleeps and wakes sure she is back in that room. Then she starts to help, because she remembers what others never got to report. Layout. Smells. A hallway slope. A door that sticks. How food arrived. How the man spoke when calm and angry. How masks changed with mood. Cross sits with her and listens instead of rushing, the way he once listened to children in school halls. He believes her the first time, and that matters.

Kate insists on staying in the case. She wants the women she left behind found. She draws maps and looks at photos. She tells Cross when a theory feels wrong from inside the house. She is not police, so she asks plain questions. Why woods with no close neighbors. Why a pharmacy that asks little. Why risk taking a doctor who might fight. Cross does not have clean answers, but her questions narrow the search. She also asks for a guard and then hates having one, since it reminds her she is still hunted. Sampson brings fruit and talks basketball for ten minutes to give her a normal stretch, and I liked him for it.

Cross, Sampson and the investigation

Cross and Sampson carry the case, and their friendship is the steadiest part. Sampson is large, loyal, funny in dry bursts. He drives and watches doors. He leans on people who need leaning on. He tells Cross when grief is steering instead of evidence. Cross profiles and connects paper. He is a psychologist as well as a detective, so he reads letters for need as much as fact. Casanova needs praise. The Gentleman Caller needs print. Take away the audience and they get careless. That idea guides much of the legwork.

The team widens. Kyle Craig of the FBI shares files and lab help, though turf fights slow things. Ruskin and Sikes know Durham streets and rentals. Lieberman the reporter shares letters before she is silenced, and her murder raises the cost of the press game. Her notes point toward Rudolph and drug sources. Marinol comes up, a drug that causes heavy sedation, and its presence suggests a doctor or someone who can order without questions. That clue moves the case from who to where, from faces to places.

Patterson shows legwork in short bursts. Check time sheets. Check sick days on abduction dates. Check van rentals. Check lumber and lock sales. Check isolated properties with fresh wiring or soundproofing. Check prescription logs. Cross walks campuses and clinics and asks about strange cars and substitutes. Sampson walks lots and storage units. Kate walks through memory again, which costs her sleep. None of this is flashy on its own. It accumulates until a rental or a log stands out.

Cross keeps calling home. Nana Mama holds the house in D.C. She feeds the kids and tells Cross to eat and sleep. Damon tries to act older than he is. Jannie draws and asks direct questions adults avoid. Cross feels guilt about being away, and about pushing hard near Kate and Naomi. Sampson covers for him, bringing groceries and sitting on the porch, telling stories that leave out the worst parts. I believed those scenes. They explain why Cross risks so much. He knows what a safe home feels like, and he wants it for every family waiting in Durham.

The underground house and the rescue

The last stretch moves back to the woods. Tips, maps, pharmacy records, and Kate's memory point to properties where a man could hide sound and traffic. Cross and Sampson push through dead ends. One rental proves empty. Another has fresh concrete and too many locks for a hunting cabin. Dogs, flashlights, radios. Patterson stages it clearly. You always know where Cross stands, where Sampson stands, where Kate waits. A gate. A path. A generator hum. A door that should not be there.

Inside, the house is as Kate described. Low halls. Small rooms. Food stores. Medical supplies. Masks on a shelf. Cross moves slowly, calling names, listening for breathing. Sampson covers stairs and exits. Backup waits back because sirens would warn anyone inside. I will not lay out room by room, because tension works best when you do not know who is where. I can say Naomi is found alive with other women, weak and dazed. That rescue lands because Naomi was family first, not a plot token. One woman does not survive the captivity, and Patterson lets that loss sit instead of rushing past it.

The fight is close and messy. Casanova knows the dark corners better than police and uses that edge. The link to the Gentleman Caller frays under stress, with one man trying to use the other as cover. Cross has to talk and move at once, as he did with frightened children in book 1, only now the people he coaxes out have been taught to fear any male voice. Kate helps, calling women by name, telling them Sampson is with her, telling them to stay low. Sampson stays where they can see him, steady and unhurried, while Cross clears each turn.

The book closes the Durham site and points at the California partner for courts and the next hunt. Cross gets Naomi to doctors and sits with her through first questions. Sampson guards, then steps back for family. Kate cries and laughs when she sees women walk out. Those pages feel tired and tender rather than triumphant, which suited me. Naomi needs time, and Patterson does not rush her healing into a speech.

Short chapters, speed, and what wears thin

Patterson's short chapters are the engine and the problem. They make a 464 page book move like a 250 page book. You tell yourself one more, then three more. A knock. A letter. A map detail. A phone at 2 a.m. For a missing women search, that push fits. I read the last hundred pages in one sitting because stopping felt like leaving Kate and Naomi in the dark.

Speed costs depth. Durham police beyond Ruskin and Sikes blur. FBI work shrinks to jurisdiction fights. The California reporting thread narrows to letters and a murder that shocks more than it reveals. Even Cross's psychology thins in chases into lines any cop might say. I missed the longer home scenes from book 1. Nana Mama, Damon, and Jannie appear briefly, and I wanted one more porch evening to balance the woods.

The two killer setup also crowds the ending. Casanova gets the most time and clearest habits. The Gentleman Caller is vivid in letters, then must carry a lot of plot fast. Their alliance through mail makes sense as an idea. Two lonely men proving themselves. In practice, Patterson explains it while people run with flashlights. I reread two pages to track who sent what to whom. The feeling holds. The logistics wobble if you poke them.

Still, the core holds. Naomi as loved niece raises stakes without tricks. Kate as survivor turned partner avoids the helpless witness trap. Sampson keeps Cross human when anger tempts him to break rules. Durham and Los Angeles feel apart until paper joins them through Marinol, letters, and Kate's recall.

If you come from the film, expect more room. The 1997 movie keeps Casanova, Kate's escape, and the Cross and Sampson bond, but compresses California and changes fates. The novel gives you letters, press pressure, the pharmacy hunt, and more time with family. Book 1 was a kidnapping with a courtroom tail. Book 2 is a search with a rescue core.

I closed the book late, kitchen light on. I thought less about masks or tunnels and more about Cross on the phone with Nana Mama, trying to sound sure for his kids while unsure in Durham. That is why I will keep going to Jack and Jill next.

What stayed with me was Kate calling names down a dark hall, and Sampson waiting at the stairs so the women would see a steady face first.

FAQ

When was Kiss the Girls published?

It was first published in 1995 by Little, Brown and Company. The standard hardcover runs 464 pages.

Who is Casanova in Kiss the Girls?

He is the Durham abductor who charms and drugs young women and holds them in a hidden underground house. He calls his captives a collection and punishes rule breaking.

Is Kiss the Girls the second Alex Cross book?

Yes, it is book 2 in the Alex Cross series by James Patterson, following Along Came a Spider. It introduces Naomi Cross and Kate McTiernan.