Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: May 3, 2021
Source: Personal copy
Summary:
Detective Lindsay Boxer vows to protect a young woman from a serial killer long enough to see her twenty-first birthday.
When young wife and mother Tara Burke goes missing with her baby girl, all eyes are on her husband, Lucas. He paints her not as a missing person but a wayward wife—until a gruesome piece of evidence turns the investigation criminal.
While Chronicle reporter Cindy Thomas pursues the story and M.E. Claire Washburn harbors theories that run counter to the SFPD’s, ADA Yuki Castellano sizes Lucas up as a textbook domestic offender . . . who suddenly puts forward an unexpected suspect. If what Lucas tells law enforcement has even a grain of truth, there isn’t a woman in the state of California who’s safe from the reach of an unspeakable threat.
***Short & Sweet Reviews are short, quick reviews. These will mainly be used for series books where I have already done full reviews on some of the earlier books or for books that I feel will suffice with a quick review. These will not be used for review requests or blog tours.
My thoughts:
I have been reading James Patterson for quite some time and the Women Murder Club series is one of my favorite series. I can’t believe we are up to book 21! This series is still going strong and I love it as much as I did when I first discovered it.
What I loved most about this latest installment is that we have all four of the gals working together on a case…and we see them together quite frequently. This had been my only complaint in a few of the previous books – that one or two of the women were missing or not as involved in the books as I would have liked, but not so here. They were all present and accounted for. I will say that Lindsay and Cindy really have the lion’s share of the work and I am really curious as to where things so next for Cindy, but luckily book 22 is out in only a few weeks and I have a feeling I won’t be able to wait as long to read it as I did with this one.
I loved that as usual, we have the short chapters, the lightning-quick pace and twists that just keep coming. What seems as a simple missing persons case becomes more puzzling by the minute and I loved the way this one played out – it really kept me on my toes, trying to put all the pieces together.
I’m not sure how James Patterson and Maxine Paetro continue to keep this series so exciting and new but it is and I will be a die-hard reader until the end.
Books in this series:
1. 1st to Die 13. Unlucky 13
2. 2nd Chance 14. 14th Deadly Sin
3. 3rd Degree 15. 15th Affair
4. 4th of July 15.5 The Trial
5. The 5th Horseman 16. 16th Seduction
6. The 6th Target 16.5 The Medical Examiner
7. 7th Heaven 17. The 17th Suspect
8. The 8th Confession 18. The 18th Abduction
9. The 9th Judgment 19. The 19th Christmas
10. 10th Anniversary 20. The 20th Victim
11. 11th Hour 21. 21st Birthday
12. 12th of Never 22. 22 Seconds – due out May 2022
