The 5th Horseman (Women's Murder Club)
by James Patterson, Maxine Paetro
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Book Reviews of The 5th Horseman (Women's Murder Club)
Book Review: Exciting.....transports you into the story
Summary: 5 Stars
My latest read is `The 5th Horseman' by James Patterson with help from Maxine Paetro - the fifth addition to the Women's Murder Club. James Patterson is an excellent crime writer and with `The 5th Horseman' he doesn't disappoint his fans.
The Women's Murder Club consists of 4 women in San Francisco -Lindsay Boxer, a homicide lieutenant; Claire Washburn, the medical examiner; Cindy Thomas, a reporter and Yuki Castellano, a lawyer. The opening chapter lets you into the mind of a killer selecting random victims in a hospital. The collapse of Yuki's mother brings her to the very same hospital, just as a class action malpractice suit is filed against the hospital and the doctor attending to Yuki's mom. Just as quickly, Lindsay is investigating the death of a young Jane Doe, killed, left in a luxury car and dressed to the nines in haute couture, though the shoes are too big. Two serial killers in one reading makes for a captivated audience - me!
Patterson with the help of Paetro tells an exciting story, brings you into the lives of the women and makes your relationship with them personal. Just as he has done in the Alex Cross novels of big screen fame, the plot winds, leaves you hanging and then returns with the twist that makes you smiling at the perfect conclusion.
I thought I'd use becoming a MWT book reviewer to re-immerse myself in reading. I've now finished my second book and my feet are more than wet - I'm drowning! Certainly not in a bad way, definitely in a good way. I have picked 2 books that are actually part of a series, but not the beginning of either. Now I can't wait to read the other books that are preludes and I have a feeling once I finish those, I will be on the edge, waiting for the next in the series, like my pathetic impatience for Book Seven of Harry Potter.
Book Review: Wait a Minute!
Summary: 3 Stars
I really wish I could give this book three and a HALF stars, because the plot twists were many and ingenious, particularly in the last 100 pages of the book. And I liked the book very much.
The problem, for me, anyway, was that it was two books in one, and the simultaneous plots ended so abruptly, I was taken aback. The first plot involved a horrendous pair of serial killers (we know quickly from our friend Claire the ME that the murders had to be done by two people)who are posing dead, beautiful girls in luxury cars. This made for a fast-paced, riveting mystery--until all of a sudden, it was solved with an inexplicable plot twist (I won't give it away, but it was way too pat and I had one very obvious question that was never anwered).
The other story involves a large, city (San Francisco, where all the Murder Club novels take place) hospital in which patients who are on the mend are dying horribly...with signature coins/buttons placed on their eyes. It points to one of the hospital's key surgeons, already on trial in a very public civil suit for malpractice--but the reader knows it probably is somebody else.
When Yuki's mother becomes one of the victims, it all becomes overwhelmingly personal--for her, for Cindy who is writing about the crimes in her newspaper--and most particularly for Lindsay, who is obssessed with solving the murders despite the horrendous publicity for herself and the SFPD if she cannot prove her case.
That case is also solved abruptly...on the last page, with the reader gasping for more detail. I felt like shouting, "Wait a minute!" But that was the end.
Definitely a great read, but strangely asymmetrical, the only word that can describe how disjointed it seemed.
Book Review: Something Is Missing...
Summary: 3 Stars
Lindsay Boxer and the rest of the Women's Murder Club is back in the (you guessed it!) 5th installment in this series. Something is amiss at one of San Francisco's local hospitals. Patients are being murdered. The crimes hit too close to home when Lindsay is out shopping with her friend Yuki and Yuki's mom Keiko. Keiko suddenly collapses and is rushed to the hospital. Told that Keiko will be fine, Yuki and Lindsay relax, that is until a few days later, just before Keiko is to be released from the hospital, she is murdered. Lindsay and the gang pick up the case and run with it, determined to find out who is murdering innocent people at the local hospital.
I am quite fond of this series, though I am lately having some issues with James Patterson. I have given up on the Alex Cross series and the independent novels because they have become lackluster garbage. The Women's Murder Club series seems to be holding together a little better, though with this installment, I am beginning to worry. The plot was fine and the characters were OK, but this novel lacked much. It was obvious from the moment we were introduced to Yuki that she was being worked into the Women's Murder Club and the death of her mom cemented her position. However, I don't think Yuki was well developed and I had a lot of trouble liking her, which made it hard to care about her mother. The plot was OK, but a little under-developed. The whole novel seemed to be missing some meat. Like with the Alex Cross series, this novel has a slapdash feel to it that makes me think Patterson is just cranking his novels out without any care for quality.
I will definitely read the next installment and hope for the best. I would recommend this novel, though not with mush enthusiasm.
Book Review: Another Just average effort
Summary: 3 Stars
The women's murder club is back for the 5th installment and this time we have a new member for the team Yuki who was Ms. Lindsay Boxers defense attorney that successfully won her case.
We have two different cases to Mysteries to follow the first series of murders startwith somebody murdering seemingly innocent early 20 something girls with no real visisble signs of the method, cleaning them dressing them impecably in high dollar clothing and placing and staging their bodies in expensive cars such as Ferrari's and giving the nickname of the car girl murdrers
The next story line that follows weaved with the car girls murders is that there seems to be alot of people that are dieing in San Francisco Municipal Hospital. Patients who come in from all different walks of life,size,age,race and both male and female they have medical conditions that are gennerally easy to fix but require over night stay and during this time they take a turn for the worse and die. It appears that it could be patients getting the wrong medications, the patients are then found with dime sizes coins over their eyes that have the medical emblem on them. This hits right at home for the murder club as Yuki Castellano mother fines herself in the hospital after a mild stroke.
Like all patterson books they are easy reads like a good afternoon book but they could have written the two different story lines as two books developed them more cause they do not tie together you can definitely tell two authors penned this book. I wished Mr. patterson would go back to how this series and the Alex Cross series in the first books and get back to that quality of writting
Book Review: Definitely Fifth in Line Quality Wise of the Boxer Series
Summary: 2 Stars
Very average fifth book in the Lindsay Boxer series which is very disappointing when the previous novel, 4th of July which also had the same co-author Maxine Paetro was by far the best in the series. It is a shame that Patterson concentrates on quantity and not quality with his novels. The usual can't put down until final page factor that we look for with Patterson is sadly not here in this book. I took a lot longer to read The 5th Horseman than other Patterson novels as I only picked it up to continue when there was nothing on TV or I had nothing else to do. Usually once started I couldn't care less about TV or the outside world until I've finished and when I reluctantly have to put the Patterson novel down I pick it up again at the next available moment. Patterson novels are now a gamble, you keep buying them because occasionally he writes another masterpiece like he always did at the start of his career but now more often than not you're not leaving satisfied.
In the 5th Horseman Women's Murder Club member and attorney Yuki Castellano's mother is in San Francisco's largest hospital, San Francisco Municipal Hospital. At the same time the other Murder Club members are learning rumours of a large number of suspicious deaths at the hospital and a class action law suit about to be underway which Yuki doesn't give much substance to. Lindsay of course ignores all the advice from the under funded and staffed police hierarchy and persists on digging deeper into the suspicious deaths convinced a serial killer is at large. Soon it becomes deadly personal and nothing will stop Lindsay from uncovering the truth.