Friday, February 05, 2010

Mini Review: 8th Confession

I am now up to date on James Patterson's Women's Murder Club series. Well, until the next one comes out in April. But I'm already on the waiting list at the library.

Meanwhile, here are my thoughts on The 8th Confession. (The link will take you to my full review.) Will someone get them (James and co-author Maxine Paetro) to write a good book again?

The book has two stories going on at the same time. Other than our main characters, there is nothing to tie the stories together. Up first, we have the case of a homeless man who is shot and then beaten. Then there's the case of a serial killer who is targeting the richest citizens of San Francisco.

Both of these cases were actually pretty interesting. I certainly enjoyed them. The pace moved quickly. One didn't end at all satisfactorally, which irritated me.

The problem was with the romantic sub-plots. I am so far beyond the whole Lindsay is attracted to her partner but loves her boyfriend story line. End it already! I think they've finally done that here, although I'm not sure I buy how that happened.

Then there's the poor case of Yuki. The assistant district attorny has two sub-plots here. Neither amounts to a hill of beans. It was like they suddenly realized they had no idea what to do with her, so they invented stories for her. But none of those stories had a good resolution. They were just stupid.

The first few books in this series were good. I'm wondering if he needs to write one himself or go back to Andrew Gross so we can get a book truly worthy of these great characters again.

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