The Wikipedia entry for James Patterson’s fictional character Alex Cross includes this nugget of understatement: “Alex has had bad luck with women.” That’s for sure, as anyone knows who’s seen the films “Kiss the Girls” and “Along Came a Spider,” with Morgan Freeman as Cross, the brainy police psychologist who’s either chasing down killers of women or women who kill. Women are something of an endangered sex in “Alex Cross”: one, half-dressed in black lingerie, dies after all her fingers are methodically snipped off. Another is similarly tortured to death; a third is shot straight through the chest. Where’s Madea when you need her?
