Book Review

By Derryll White

Patterson, James and Maxine Paetro (2012). 11th Hour.

This is a novel of the Women’s Murder Club series, set in San Francisco. The “murder club” is comprised of four women. Dr. Claire Washburn is the Chief Medical Examiner in San Francisco. Yuki Castellano is an assistant District Attorney. Cindy Thomas is an investigative crime reporter with the San Francisco Chronicle. Detective Sergeant Lindsay Boxer is in charge of the murder investigation and the fourth member of the “club.”

So, four like-minded trained and powerful women, pooling their brainpower to solve a series of drug-related murders.

‘11th Hour’ is set in San Francisco, but it dismally fails to take advantage of it. The city is merely the geographic backdrop to an extended soap opera. The story itself never really comes to any conclusions. It simply yields an over-supply of body parts from seven dead women who seem incidental to the loves and losses of the women in the Murder Club. In fact, the story is mildly insulting – to police, career women and to everyone who has ever struggled to make a relationship work. Patterson and Paetro make everything so simple.

I was not impressed with the writing, thought development, characters or story line. Consequently I have only the one excerpt to connote the feeling of the authors’ intellectual agility. Not many books feel like a waste of time to me, but this one sure did.

****

Excerpt from the novel:

HURT – I had trusted Joe with everything. I was having his baby. I was making a family with him for keeps – and then this. I had never felt so betrayed by anyone in my life. I had to get away from him. I couldn’t stand to look at him for another moment.

– Derryll White once wrote books but now chooses to read and write about them.  When not reading he writes history for the web at www.basininstitute.org.

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