Alex Cross

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Alex Cross is arguably novelist James Patterson's most renowned character, featuring in a series of books under the same name. Alex joined the Washington, D.C. Police Department as a psychologist. He worked in the Homicide and Major Crimes department and acted as a liaison between the FBI and D.C. police. After his stint with the FBI as a Senior Agent, Alex has now re-started his private psychology practice, but regularly consults for D.C. police and the FBI as needed.

He lives in Washington, D.C. with his grandmother (Nana Mama) and three children Damon, Jannie, and Alex, Jr. (aka Ali, Little Alex). He had Damon and Jannie with his deceased wife Maria Simpson Cross. He had Ali with his ex-girlfriend Christine. Cross received a doctorate in psychology from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, but he decided to become a police officer after becoming disillusioned with the politics of the medical community.

Patterson portrays Dr. Cross as a lonely individual, yet he is a model father and is quite empathic in dealing with the public. Despite the fact that he is well educated and makes a decent living, he chooses to continue residing in the slums of D.C. He is very much involved in the community, most notably volunteering at St. Anthony's Parish in his D.C. neighborhood.

Cross was portrayed by Morgan Freeman in the films Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider.

[edit] Appearances in the Alex Cross series

In Along Came A Spider, Alex dealt with the kidnapping of two wealthy children at the hands of Gary Soneji.

In Kiss The Girls, Cross battled serial killlers Casanova and The Gentleman Caller who kidnapped and killed beautiful and extraordinary women, including his niece Naomi.

In Jack & Jill, Cross went up against three killers, two that killed high profile people and one that killed little kids.

In Cat and Mouse, Cross engaged Gary Soneji again and after dealing with him crosses paths with another killer, Mr. Smith.

In Pop Goes the Weasel Alex matches wit with a serial killer named Geoffrey Shafer, who happens to be a British man with Diplomatic immunity.

In Roses are Red, Alex goes against a criminal calling himself The Mastermind, who commits several brutal bank robberies.

In Violets are Blue, Alex goes against a cult of vampires and learns the true identity of the Mastermind, whom he takes down.

In Four Blind Mice, Alex and his friend John Sampson investigate 3 killers that are framing seemingly innocent soldiers from the Vietnam War.

In The Big Bad Wolf, Alex, now a member of the FBI, tries to stop a Russian mobster known only as the Wolf.

In London Bridges, Alex tries to stop the Wolf once and for all, but the Wolf has enlisted the Weasel, Geoffrey Shafer, to help him take Cross down.

In Mary, Mary, Alex tries to stop Mary Smith, a psychopathic killer targeting Hollywood stars and powerbrokers.

In Cross, Alex, who has left the FBI to open up a private psychology practice, and John Sampson try to stop The Butcher, a serial rapist/murderer, who may be somehow connected to the murder of his wife Maria in 1993.

[edit] Trivia

• Alex lives and works in the Ghettos of Washington DC.
• Alex carries a Glock and likes no other gun.
• Alex plays the piano to relax.
• Alex volunteers at St. Anthony Soup kitchen where he is known as the Peanut Butter Man. He volunteers about 3 times a week. He begun doing this with his wife Maria, who was a social worker. His partner John Sampson also volunteers there.
• John Sampson calls Alex "Brown Sugar", Sugar for short as a term of endearment. They have been best friends since they were 9 years old. Sampson was Alex's partner in the Washington DC Police.
• Alex and John are both tall and physical. Alex is 6'3" and John is 6'9". Together they weigh almost 500 pounds.
• Alex drives a 1974 Porsche and has recently bought a Mercedes-Benz R350 as a replacement for Maria's old Toyota, which serves as the family car.
• Alex's mother died of lung cancer a year after his father died. He was sent to Washington DC to live with his Grandmother (Nana Mama).
• Alex's wife, Maria, a social worker, was originally thought to have been killed by a drive-by-shooting. Her killer has never been identified until Patterson's latest novel, "Cross" in which Alex has a chance to catch Maria's killer.
• Alex teaches his 2 elder children boxing at his home's basement.
• When Alex needs to talk to someone about his problems, he meets with a friend, another psychologist Dr. Adele Finaly. She also works as an analyst for Alex.
• Alex owns a reddish brown Abyssinian cat named Rosie. The cat had shown up one day and never left. In one of the novels Gary Soneji telephones Cross saying that it was he who left the cat.
• Alex refers to himself as "The Dragonslayer".
• Alex has bad luck with women, His wife Maria was murdered, his lover after that, Jezzie Flanigan was involved in the kidnapping of two children which resulted in her death by lethal injection, his girlfriend Christine Johnson was kidnapped for almost a year by Geoffrey Shafer. An FBI agent that he'd partnered with, Betsey Cavalierre, was murdered by The Mastermind. He also developed a deep friendship with Dr. Kateyla "Kate" McTiernan, whom he met before Christine. There were strong hints of a possible romantic relationship, but both Alex and Kate preferred to remain friends. Later he met a San Francisco PD inspector with whom he struck up a relationship.
• Alex worked 2 years as a psychologist. He joined the police because the people in his neighborhood couldn't afford his services and white people did not see a black shrink. He never expected to like it but became hooked to solving crimes. He remember his first case he solved was 2 men that were shot in southeast Washington and their killing was written off as drug related. Alex knew the men and began to investigate on his own. One of the men was dating a woman the local drug dealer thought he owned and had the men killed. Once he solved that case he never went back to private practice.
• Upon graduation Cross worked as a migrant farm worker for a year.