Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of sexual violence.

Kiss the Girls is the second book in the Alex Cross Series. There are over 30 titles in the series, including The House of Cross. The later installments all feature Cross in the title, but the first 11 books use lines from nursery rhymes for the titles. Kiss the Girls comes from the 19th-century rhyme “George Porgie.” The rhyme is a quatrain (four lines long), and the first two lines read, “Georgie Porgie, Puddin’ and Pie, / Kissed the girls and made them cry” (“Georgie Porgie.” All Nursery Rhymes). By linking the titles to nursery rhymes, Patterson underscores the unsettling contradictions within American culture. Even ostensibly innocent rhymes become symbols of brutal behavior.

In the first novel, Along Came a Spider, children are at the center of the case, as Cross must figure out who’s kidnapping affluent kids. The culprit is Gary Soneji. As in Kiss the Girls, Cross uses unconventional means to capture him. Near the end of Kiss the Girls, Cross learns that Soneji escapes jail and wants to hurt him.