Book Review: 12th of Never by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro

 

12th of Never

by

James Patterson & Maxine Paetro

 

James Patterson is one of the worlds leading thriller writers having sold over 300 million copies in nearly 40 years of being an author. Just like marmite, book readers either love his novels or loathe them. For me, I am a huge fan. It was James Patterson books that got me started with this love affair with reading. Yes, I know that he has a small army of authors that write his books for him, but he writes all the plot lines and has the final say. Patterson is probably most famous for his set of Alex Cross novels. Other popular series include the Detective Michael Bennett books and most recently the Private novels, but for me, my favourite is The Women's Murder Club series. I find them the most exciting to read plus they are set in San Francisco my favourite city in the world...

 

It has been a few years since I have read a Women's Murder Club book due to the other 100 unread novels that sit on our book shelf. I have decided it was time to catch up so I am going to read the 3 latest books back to back starting with 12th of Never followed by Unlucky 13 and then 14th Deadly Sin. Over the next 3 weeks I will review these one by one. Big thanks to my brother Tom for getting me these books for Christmas & my birthday.

 

The Women's Murder Club is about a group of friends that live in San Francisco, America. They are Detective Lindsay Boxer from the SFPD homicide department, Dr Clare Washburn Chief Medical Officer for San Francisco, Yuki Castellano a District Attorney for San Francisco and Cindy Thomas a crime reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper and together they help catch some of the cities most violent criminals.

Detective Lindsay Boxer is pregnant but there is no rest for her as a professor walks into the homicide department to report a murder that has not yet happened. A convicted serial killer wakes up from a coma and says that he is ready to bring peace to the families of his victims. With all this going on Lindsay's mind is else where as she is faced with the biggest loss of her life.

The book starts off like most of Jams Patterson's books, straight into the action. No scene setting or building up to anything just "BOOM and we're off" This is what I most like about these books. Another thing I love about the Women's Murder Club books are that there is never just one plot to the story. This like previous ones is no different. There are 6 plots going on at one time what with 2 murders, a courtroom battle, a disgraced sports star, heart-breaking news and of course a love story. 

Along with the four main characters there is the usual supporting cast and then the evil "baddies". I love how Patterson writes his characters -  they are all believable and you get a good picture in your mind about them all. Although you could potentially read this book as a one off as there is always a brief history about the characters I would recommend that if you want to read these books then to start from the beginning. This way you learn about how the characters have grown over the years and learn how the relationships have been built and the full history of how they have become what they are now.

The plots lines were all very good and original but most of all you can see these stories happening in real life, which for me makes a good thriller. If you have read a James Patterson book before you know that the chapters are very short which means even when you are so tired and your eyes are closing you know it will only take another minute to read another chapter. Before you know it you have read another 30 pages. This book had lots of twists and turns as usual with one huge one at the end, which I did not see coming at all. I hope this story follows on in the next book. I am not the fastest of readers but you could tell it had me hooked as I read it in just over a week.

Is there anything I did not like about this book? Only just a small thing but I thought that the plots where based around 3 of the 4 main characters and Cindy Thomas was not really used that much. In previous books all 4 have had a fair share.

I scored this book a 4.5 out of 5. I loved this book and it was great to catch up with the gang. I can't wait to read the next book Unlucky 13. If you love thrillers I would recommend you read these books. They also make great holiday reads as you can dip in and out whenever you want. I must give a big shout out to Maxine Paetro who always puts James Patterson's vision into words very well.

I would love to know what everyone's else thinks about James Patterson books. Do you love them or loathe them? Which is your favourite series by James Patterson? Let me know.

Speak soon

CBailey31