Patterson, author ofThe Craigslist Killer (A Digital Short), has turned in another uneven short story with "19."Misleadingly described as a medical thriller (just because a character suffers health problems doesn't mean the resulting story will appeal to readers of that genre), this story suffers from a meandering plot, unresolved details, and awkward framing.A man (nearing the end of his life? We're just told his grey hair indicates he is older than fifty) receives a letter from an old flame. They were actually engaged at one point, but the engagement ended. Why? We're told he never knew why.Okay. Maybe those questions will be answered in the manuscript that his ex encloses.Nope. It's a totally different story, starting at her childhood and then skipping forward to middle-age. There's a little too much detail at the beginning (for example: her material grandparents didn't want her parents to get married, telling her to stay away from "Polls" [sic]), as if Patterson initially set out to write a longer story and then lost his resolve. So after setting the scene, we're skipped ahead decades.The plot itself, we're told, is based on a true story. It's one of those things that you might hear of happening to a friend of a friend of a friend -- a woman smells roses if somebody in her family is about to die. But this wasn't enough and we get two other supernatural elements that are played out in great detail and then never explained.It's less thrilling than it is sophoric. The reader keeps waiting for details to be explained or come together to create a cohesive whole, but it never happens.
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