11TH HOUR

TITLE: 11^TH HOUR

AUTHOR: JAMES PATTERSON &

              MAXIME PAETRO

Pages: 391

Date: 29/03/2012

Grade: 3.5

Details: no. 11 Women’s Murder Club

Library

Lindsay Boxer is pregnant and working two cases.

When millionaire drug-dealer Chaz Smith is shot down during a children’s concert the murder weapon is one that was stolen from the San Francisco Police Department evidence locker.  The weapon has also been used to kill four other drug dealers. It looks like there might be somebody, connected to the SFPD, out to kill those who can’t be touched by justice. And as Lindsay and her partner soon discover, he’s not done yet.

Lindsay has only started on this case when she called to the house of a famous movie star where two heads have been discovered displayed on the patio. There is no sign of any bodies, but the police do find five more heads buried in the garden.

These are two cases with little or no real evidence and even fewer clues and the pressure to solve them is high.

With the media hot on the police’s tail with their reports on both cases, Lindsay finds herself in the spotlight and very soon in personal turmoil. Even closing the cases might not lead to a happy ending in her personal life.

As always, this is a fast paced, thrill a minute mystery/thriller; just what you would expect from a James Patterson book.

However, this book, like several of its predecessors, also reads as if it has been created by write by number. The ingredients as well as their development are predictable. Take two strange investigations, throw in some personal dilemma’s for the main characters, maybe a twist and turn or two and voila, you’ve got yourself a best-seller. Provided of course that Patterson is one of the author names on the cover. I’m not sure a rookie author would get themselves published if they presented a rather flimsy book like this.

Having said all that, the also standard, short chapters, each of them with a sort of cliff-hanger ending, do draw the reader in and keep them turning the pages. And, I do enjoy getting back to characters I’ve come to know and love even if there is little or no character development.

Whenever I’m in need of an undemanding, quick read, James Patterson is one of the authors I can safely turn to and as such I will probably continue to read them. I can’t however see myself paying money for one of his titles. But then again, that’s what libraries are for.