Alex Cross Novels

My mother recently passed on a book to me called Cross by James Patterson. The main character is Alex Cross. I am near the end of this novel. It’s a good story but I kept feeling like I was coming in during the middle of the story. The story is self-contained enough that it did not bother me too much. I didn’t realize this was the same Alex that Morgan Freeman played in two movies, Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider. I guess the main reason for my disconnect was that Alex in this novel is only about 40 years old while Morgan is over 70. That being said, I look forward to more of Alex Cross. I just have to decide if I want to go forward in the series to Double Cross, or go back to the beginning and read the 11 previous novels first.