The four members of the Women Murder Club have never been short of grisly deaths to investigate. The group, consisting of Lindsay Boxer, a Police Detective, Yuki, a district Attorney, the reporter, Cindy and Medical Examiner, Clair fight crime in their own inimical way, criminals beware. This time a professor appears to have an uncanny ability to predict crimes via his dreams and a vicious criminal wakes after two years in a coma ready to bargain with the police and play his own game...

12th of Never is another in the series of Women’s Murder Club, each which starts with a number, a catchy motif, written by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro.

For fans of the series another will feel like spending time with old friends. Yes the books are formulaic, with their short chapters, ideal for reading on a journey and the reoccurring characters, accusations of repetition are never far away. There are two cases, again, although whether they are linked is for the reader to discover.

In tone the series continues the tradition started with Cagney and Lacy, as well as Hill Street Blues, where the personal lives of the police are as prominent as the procedural side. You can get away with this, especially in such a long series, as the characters home lives have been slowly built up over the preceding eleven books, although I’m guessing you would have to have gained an emotional attachment to Lindsay Boxer to care if she was in labour or that her child has a high temperature.

The books play out like a television program with many shared tropes between the two mediums and like a soap opera, if you have followed the series so far you are already in too deep not to buy the next chapter.

Competently written, the novel delivers committed fans another slice of the Womens Murder Club, for the casual reader it’s a fast paced story which will entertain you for the time it takes to finish.

6

Charles Packer