A Review: 1st to Die by James Patterson

Hardcover: 424 pages
Language: English
Publisher: Little Brown & Co, Mar 2001
ISBN-10: 0316666009
ISBN-13: 9780316666008

In this first novel of the Women's Murder Club series, Lindsay Boxer is a homicide inspector who's just gotten some very bad news. She deals with it by immersing herself in her newest case. A killer is murdering recently married couples, and Lindsay is stumped. Off duty, she forms The Women's Murder Club, made up of her friends: an assistant district attorney, a newspaper reporter, and a medical examiner. The four women use everything at their disposal to figure out who the killer is before he can strike again. Their lead suspect is a world-famous writer whose plot from his first novel resemble the murders. Murdering his victims on the happiest day of their lives, their wedding day, he purposefully leaves enough clues for his trackers to discover his identity and put him behind bars.

There is suspense from the beginning to the end of this book. You will not want to put it down once you start. It is truly a 5 star thriller.

Description (from the author's website)

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.