Could have been good.

Zoo is the 29th stand-alone novel by American author, James Patterson and is co-written by Michael Ledwidge. Something has changed the behaviour of the earths animals: zoo animals are breaking out and attacking; the number of attacks on humans by wild animals is increasing exponentially; and domestic pets are turning on their owners. And it seems the only person who has noticed is college drop-out, Jackson Oz. A trip to Botswana, where Oz catches the strange wild animal behaviour on film, finally attracts some notice. A good novelist will ask his reader to suspend their disbelief on some critical points, but will back up his story with a consistent, believable background of facts. This novel is set partly in the present and partly some years into the future. The basic premise of the story is a good one, but some of the incidents are rather too far-fetched (the escape from lions and crocs in Botswana, the time taken to figure out the cause of the behaviour and the virtually instant reversal of behaviour once Ozs solution is implemented) to avoid the reader scoffing. While the behaviour of the military and politicians is all too believable, the understanding of the machinations of the scientific community seems rather nave. Patterson introduces a few novel concepts (mutual dreaming, use of smoke to disperse pheromones) and then fails to develop them at all. This novel will appeal to someone who is looking for something where the first few chapters are brand-name soup, something that is part apocalyptic, part anti-pollution lecture, part slapstick, part doomsday prediction, part very poor imitation of Stephen King. Could have been good.