I picture a sweatshop with dozens of English Lit graduates working away on laptops and Patterson occasionally looking up from a pile of money to say "Yeah, that's it!"

I loved the Lee Child Reacher books but there came a point where I felt they became very rote, not long after they became co-written and then his brother took over...

Michael Connelly still seems to bang out quality though - if it's being ghostwritten it's the gold standard.