In a relentless construction programme, 80% of the town's roads were rebuilt.
Patterson's relentless publication programme – more than 70 novels to his name, and 12 out in the UK in this year alone – is the result not only of his dogged determination but also of his enthusiasm for using co-writers.
The violent contradictions of our post-democratic elitist epoch might have been displaced to an overseas "theatre of war", but by resolutely associating them with Wall Street privilege and power, Easton Ellis's novel makes a comment on the ugliness of modern capitalism and its relentless consuming-towards-extinction programme.
We've seen him in the television programme, and his cruelty was relentless in that, but book Joffrey is even worse.
Mr Grayling's response to the relentless squeeze has been to champion a "benchmarking" programme under which the budgets of public-sector prisons are driven down to match their private-sector counterparts.
The ratings drop may have less to do with the people finding the material offensive, however, than the fact that the relentless focus on one subject has led the programme to become repetitive and, well, more than a little dull.
"Beyond this, our continued global expansion, the benefits which our biomass plant will bring, our relentless commitment to tight cost control, efficiency improvement programmes, strict pricing and unwavering strategic focus should restore the business to profit".
It is a programme to which they must adhere with relentless precision.
For Claire Lowdon in the Sunday Times the novel was a victim of its own excess: "Plot, character, detail – everything is in thrall to Yanagihara's programme of exaggeration, which is deeply kitsch in its relentless insistence on tragedy," she wrote.
A victim of its own success, it is facing relentless rising demand – up by nearly 7% in the last five years – despite programmes designed to reverse the trend.
