One thing about procedurals is that they have to be accurate to the times.  A contemporary crime story should not have a couple of criminals being escorted from a building but taking a side trip to use the bathroom.  I know almost nothing about police procedurals but that seems like evidence that to the author,  the plot comes first.  

7th Heaven 
by James Patterson and Maxine Praeto 
2008 (396 pages)
Read by Carolyn McCormick 7h 45m
Rating:  A++ / crime procedural thriller
(# 7 in the Women’s Murder Club series)

There may be other small irregularities here, but nothing which seriously disrupts the fun of the book. It’s considered to be one of the best in the “Women’s Murder Club” series.  

The nice sweet handicapped son of a former governor has gone missing and is presumed dead, while a serial arsonist is running amok in San Francisco.  Homicide detective Lindsay Boxer is working on both cases, as usual, but it seems that the prostitute the missing boy was supposed to have seen confesses to the crime plus she says she hid his dismembered body in a trash sack.

Meanwhile, we get insight into the minds of the teens who are setting fire to lush homes in Pacific Heights – and then they hit Lindsay’s.  

There are excellent courtroom scenes in most of the “Women’s Murder Club” books and the regular characters are fun to follow in the over-arching story line. This particular book has a bit too much sex in it for my tastes, but… (It wasn’t that bad, you can see I put up with those brief scenes.) 

Lindsay has her new partner, Bill Conklin. a couple of other co-workers, and the equally fun friends from the Women’s Mystery Club. There’s Cindy Thomas a newspaper reporter and there’s Claire Washburn who is black, married with children, and working in the medical department. And there’s the newest member, Yuki Castellano an attorney with the District Attorney’s office.  

I’m mostly reading these in order skipping the books where Maxine Paetro is not included as an author. She’s the author who’s been working with Patterson creating The Women’s Murder Club series which is now up to #22. The series improved dramatically when she was added. I read #1 but then skipped #s2 and 3 for #4 and went on from there also reading from the new releases so # 19 was my actual first of the series, then came 20, 21, & 22.  I also went ahead  hitting #s 8 & 9 but came back for #7.  This means my next book will be #10 if a new one isn’t released first.  Likely not for a few weeks though.