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Four women-four friends-share a determination to stop a killer who has been stalking newlyweds in San Francisco. Each one holds a piece of the puzzle: Lindsay Boxer is a homicide inspector in the San Francisco Police Department, Claire Washburn is a medical examiner, Jill Bernhardt is an assistant D.A., and Cindy Thomas just started working the crime desk of the San Francisco Chronicle. But the usual procedures aren't bringing them any closer to stopping the killings. So these women form a Women's Murder Club to collaborate outside the box and pursue the case by sidestepping their bosses and giving one another a hand. The four women develop intense bonds as they pursue a killer whose crimes have stunned an entire city. Working together, they track down the most terrifying and unexpected killer they have ever encountered-before a shocking conclusion in which everything they knew turns out to be devastatingly wrong.… (more)
User reviews
Some of this may be style but the chapters are exceedingly short, to the point of being snippets, not true scenes. After about twenty of these, the book annoyed me more than
Early in the book, we were given a few chapters from the killer's point of view. Then these just disappear. Worse, when they come to the actual killer, the answer comes from out of left field, with very little supporting evidence to back it up. Not even the epilogue put everything in the right place.
I realize this is the first book of the series, and a lot of this is establishing the characters, but dang. He's stretching things out without actual investigation happening. The cops are doing more command and talk among themselves than they are pounding the beat finding answers. Some things that should be stretched were written as one sentence, whereas things that should be a couple sentences rated... a full chapter.
HOW is this guy such a big deal writer?
I have more of his, but he goes to the back of the shelf until I get through some other stuff. And he may prove to be high on the weeding list when time to be rid of things.
I liked it and read all the follow up books
The villian of this piece is a nasty guy, killing couples who have just married. Detective Lindsey Boxer is determined to catch him. She winds up turning for advice to her old friend Claire, the medical examiner, and her new friend, Cindy, a reporter. By the end they also bring in Jill from the D.A.'s office.
Worth reading.
Boxer is a homicide inspector in the police department who is among the
first on the scene after the first couple's bodies are discovered. She
enlists the aid of her best friend, Claire Washburn, the city's top medical
examiner,
team up with Cindy Thomas, a crackerjack reporter for /The Chronicle/ and
Jill Bernhardt, a prosecutor from the District Attorney's office to all put
their heads together and pour over the facts and clues and solve the case.
This is the first book in the series so Patterson had to bring his
characters together and make them friends. While the relationship between
Lindsay and Claire is completely believable, the fact that they both
instantly bonded with and embraced Cindy and Jill as best friends, also,
just didn't quite cut it. This is a man trying to write about what is going
on inside women's minds and he simply cannot do it. The storyline was
interesting enough and the mystery itself was pretty good and well played
out. But this is another of those books that have two and three page
chapters, that has the story move forward in small lurches (kind of like
"Law and Order" on TV -- yet another "crime" show that I simply cannot
watch), and that got in my nerves pretty quick. That method of writing
worked very well in The DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons by Dan Brown, but
really fell short in this book.
I'm going to give the guy the benefit of the doubt, though, and read at
least one or two more in this series. Now that he's got the characters
together in their little "girls' night out murder club" we'll see if the
plots of the subsequent books in this series rise above the choppy writing.
In the meantime, this one gets a 2.5 from me.