YMMV / James Patterson

• Fridge Logic: Micheal Bennett is the only breadwinner in his family even before his wife dies, yet somehow he is able to afford to provide for ten children on a cop's salary.
  • In Zoo, female dogs seem to disappear entirely after turning feral and running away, but are later discovered to be whelping vast hordes of equally-feral puppies in concealed canine "hives", fed by the human-hunting males. This overlooks the fact that the majority of domestic female dogs are spayed, so they would be useless as "hive queen"-style breeders.
• One-Scene Wonder: Jill has a single brief playable scene in the Hidden Object Game Women's Murder Club: Twice in a Blue Moon: Riding around the archives on a segway, trying to not hit law clerks.
• Tear Jerker: The death of Mike's wife, Maeve, from cancer, in Step on a Crack, made worse because it's been set up for much of the book.
  • Anything and everything involving Jill in 3rd Degree.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Vida Gomez in Gone. She was built up as Manuel Perrine's top assassin, a highly competent and skilled killer who stops at nothing to get a job done. When she survives Perrine and looks as if she may become the main antagonist of the next book, she anticlimactically dies the very next chapter after horribly botching the assassination of the Bennett clan, murdered by Mary Catherine, of all people.
• Values Dissonance: Some of his earlier work is distressingly unquestioning of the idea that cops should be able to shoot anyone they want. The 5th Horseman even says outright that people shouldn't be worried at all about it.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: James is one of those authors who writes for all the demographics: Adults, teenagers, and children. While his Middle School, I Funny, Treasure Hunters, and Jacky Ha Ha series are made for child audiences, thus kid-friendly, most of his other books, such as the Alex Cross and Maximum Ride series, aren't really. This is probably why his children's books have the "Jimmy Patterson" label to differentiate.