Season 1 of Cross premieres Thursday, November 14 on Prime Video.

Amazon continues to expand its alliance of airport fiction avengers with Cross, plucked straight from the pages of author James Patterson’s bestselling crime novels (joining the likes of Jack Ryan and Reacher on the streamer). Part police procedural, part psychological thriller, Cross may not be as action-packed as its other paperback-inspired Prime Video peers, but it’s a tight and satisfying slow burn that do Navigate your way through the crowded cop drama genre thanks to star Aldis Hodge’s stellar performance as titular Alex Cross.

For the uninitiated, Alex Cross is an extremely brilliant homicide detective from Washington, DC and the main character of more than 30 books dating back to 1993. For the purposes of this TV series, however, Cross is not based on any particular novel. Fans don’t have to worry; all the background building blocks of Alex Cross himself are in place, and he remains a widower and father of two children with a Ph.D. in psychology. Luckily, he also still lives in DC (unlike the failed 2012 reboot film with Tyler Perry, which transplanted the character to Detroit for no profit). The intro montage that makes DC itself feel like a supporting character in the show is a clever launching pad for the series and, despite the otherwise vast differences in tone, it certainly feels like a reverent nod to the iconic intro of Beverly Hills cop.

There are also some casual, early references to a past case that cleverly help establish that Alex Cross is already somewhat of a star detective at the start of the series. While these moments are reminiscent of the first Cross novel, Around Came a Spider, the central mystery of Cross season 1 is a completely original story – and it’s a clever play. As a particularly hungry reader of Lee Child’s Reacher series, I readily admit that I loved seeing those existing books come to life in the TV series, because I’m a simple guy and I’m mostly on board to watch a series of six. foot five immobile object stomps on some heads. However, choose something fresh all viewers of Prime’s Cross means that both long-time readers and those unfamiliar with the books are on the same page, so to speak.

We obviously want to say as little as possible about the mystery itself, suffice it to say that it ultimately involves a horribly twisted serial killer – the reveal of which comes as a nice bit of dramatic irony after a character condescendingly tells Cross that not every case he works The silence of the lambs. There’s also a second thread involving a Cross family stalker, but the episodes expertly juggle these multiple dilemmas. Although a second season of Cross has already been greenlit, both storylines appear to be largely wrapped up by the end of the eight-episode debut. The result is that, despite not being based on any specific Patterson work, Cross certainly captures the mood of the film feeling of a book by being largely self-contained and eschewing cheesy TV cliffhangers – although the final episode feels a bit rushed as it ties up loose ends. A number of developments therefore feel like they have gotten out of hand.

Cross Season 1 Gallery