I don’t know about James Patterson,  but I do enjoy the collaboration between him and Maxine Paetro for The Women’s Murder Club mysteries – I’ve previously read two books by Patterson alone and they seem rather dry and extra violent to me. Paetro doesn’t really spare the violence, but there isn’t anything “dry” about her writing. 

21st Birthday
By James Patterson/Maxine Paetro
Read by January LaVoy  8h 50m
2021 –  (417 pages)
Rating A / crime procedural  
(#21 in The Women’s Murder Club Series)

Tara Burke’s mother is really screaming this time – Lucas, Tara’s school teacher husband, has murdered Tara and taken the baby!  She knows it. She gets ahold of Lindsay Boxer at the police department.  Finally Lindsay, the main star of the Women’s Murder Club mysteries, listens to her and does some checking. Both Tara and her baby have been missing for days and we find out that Lucas had a serious teenage girlfriend.  Then the baby’s body washes up and the body of his girlfriend is found.  

But Burke has alibis and he has other suspects in mind.  He says he was with his ex-wife at the beach and then, later, that his father is a serial killer who probably killed them all.   

 So that’s a twist on the usual procedural and as usual it turns into a legal thriller with an assistant district attorney, a news reporter and a medical examiner as added attractions.  These are the regular characters of the Women’s Murder Club series.  Claire, the medical examiner and Cindy, the reporter, have smaller roles in this book but that’s kind of usual I think.  

I’ll be looking for more of these books or reading some of the earlier ones, but I can’t do them too close together because they usually involve fem-jeop –  females in jeopardy.