Megan Rose (played by Mika Boorem), the daughter of Senator Hank Rose, is kidnapped from Cathedral School under the vigilant security of Secret Service Special Agent Jezzie Flannigan (played by Monica Potter) in the film Along Came a Spider, based on a novel of the same title by James Patterson, the same novelist who wrote the mystery story for Kiss the Girls (1997). The kidnapper is Gary Soneji (played by Michael Wincott), who for three years has been plotting the crime while disguised as an American history teacher at the elite private school. (Of course, the Secret Service guards the president, but not daughters of senators.) After the kidnapping, the FBI goes to the scene of the crime while Soneji telephones criminologist Dr. Alex Cross (again played by Morgan Freeman) to identify himself as a master criminal who pulled off what he megalomanically believes to be a Lindbergh-type abduction. Soneji then drops a tape into the mailbox of Cross, who wryly comments, "He’s like a spider." The criminologist, who botched a sting operation to trap a serial killer eight months earlier, goes to the school with a tape of the phone conversation, which he plays in front of Senator Rose (played by Michael Moriarty) and Mrs. Elizabeth Rose (played by Penelope Ann Miller), agent Flannigan, and her boss. Mrs. Rose insists that Dr. Cross handle the case, and Flannigan’s boss, at first reluctantly and then cooperatively. Meanwhile, Soneji sets up an elaborate game before obtaining $10 million in diamonds as the ransom on the tracks of the District of Columbia Metro. He then bursts into Flannigan’s apartment, immobilizing her at the door, and implores Dr. Cross to flatter his ego. Flannigan recovers, stabs Soneji, and Dr. Cross shoots him dead. Flannigan then goes to the apartment of another Secret Service agent at the school, who has rekidnapped the child and obtained the diamonds. Flannigan then kills the agent and the child, whom she prepares to dump (but, for some reason, not the agent), but she is foiled by an army of FBI agents at the dump site. The film, directed by Lee Tamahori, has an extraneous subplot about Russians, many loose ends, and ultimately no point at all, but the sights of Washington, D.C., provide beautiful sets. MH

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Along Came a Spider
by James Patterson

This scary thriller with a sensational double kidnapping and a serial killer presents a bizarre storyline.