Claire Washburn, the medical examiner, is the token best friend and confidant for the main character. The district attorney, Yuki Castellano (token Asian and Italian name/character?), was not memorable - perhaps those were the sections where my mind had wandered to something else. Lindsay Boxer, a homicide detective for the San Francisco Police Department, had a health scare that seemed to only be included to give the character a personal crisis to handle while trying to track down a possible serial killer. While I loved the idea of a Murder Club, as opposed to the book clubs that typically catch my attention, and that the club consists of four women in jobs that typically work closely together on crimes, I was not keen on the fact that none of the women were all that 'real.' The journalist, Cindy Thomas from the San Francisco Chronicle, is portrayed as a stereotypical drama queen. 1st to Die fits that bill perfectly.' He is absolutely right. It's a mindless story, which surprises me somewhat considering how popular James Patterson is as an author.Īs James Tivendale, another Goodreads user and book reviewer, put it in his review, 'I tend to read Patterson's books when I don't want my brain to work that hard. In other words, there isn't a lot of depth to the plot or the characters. This is an easy book to listen to while I'm multitasking on other thoughtless activities because there aren't many details that absolutely have to be remembered to enjoy or understand the story as a whole.

The first of the Women's Murder Club pulled me in from the beginning, and it happens to be the first book by James Patterson that I've ever read.

1st to die book review