“Along Came a Spider” (post 3) by James Patterson (post 4): Why is the “cool beans” scenario, extrinsic to plot, unknown to Alex Cross, in this novel?

As mentioned in one of yesterday’s posts, the novel’s Prologue says: Sixty years before the present story, a baby was kidnapped by a twelve-year-old boy, who, proud of his evil deed, said to himself, “Cool beans.”

Sixty years later, in the present story, a kidnapping is committed by a young man, who sometimes thinks of himself as “the bad boy,” and, when proud of an evil deed, may say to himself, “Cool beans.”

In yesterday’s post, I said that the “cool beans” scenario could be accounted for by the reincarnation of the first kidnapper’s evil soul into the evil kidnapper of the present story. However, this novel is not a tale of the supernatural. The hero, Alex Cross, is a down-to-earth detective and psychologist. Reincarnation is an inappropriate interpretation.

The most interesting thing about the “cool beans” scenario is that it is extrinsic to the novel’s plot. Alex Cross never knows of it. It plays no part in any police or psychological investigation. So what is it doing in this novel?

I have faced this situation with many other novels. My conclusion is this: When there is something in a novel that makes no sense in terms of the novel’s own story, when it is unwarranted and gratuitous, then I consider it a reflection of the author’s personal psychology.

The gratuitous thing in this novel is a bad boy whose pet phrase is “cool beans.” My hypothesis is that this describes one of the author’s alternate personalities.