Rating: Summary: Pure Brilliance Review: James Patterson never disappoints! Just another awesome thriller by the King of Mystery and my best friend on a stormy night, James Patterson!!
Rating: Summary: audrey's 1st look Review: i liked this book because it was about four women who started a group called The Womens' Club to trap and catch a killer on the loose who is murdering newly weds in San Francisco, CA. and Cleveland, OH. Three couples are killed all in different settings with different ways before the killer is found. The end is a twisting tale of upsetting, scary, and good all in one.
Rating: Summary: 1st to Die in Taylorville Review: 1st to Die was a great book. There were so many action scenes and murder scenes. The Womens Murder Club was the named of the four main characters secret group. They all came together and exchanged information about the killings. This book had very detailed crime scenes. The killer would leave just enough clues to have the police on his tail. Finally after 6 people were killed the killer had been found out. I will leave the end for you to read. i would recommend it to everyone.
Rating: Summary: Tyler on Patterson Review: I just finished this book by James Patterson. I would suggest this book to anyone who likes to read suspense thrillers. The four ladies are a fantastic group of characters. The book keeps you wondering to the VERY END. Detective Lindsay Boxer overcomes many things in this book that make her a great character. Patterson did a great job of makin you wonder what was next. The book was sort of graphic but I think that helped me visualize what was happening. If you haven't read this book I would suggest reading it. It's a great book by a great author.
Rating: Summary: Rarely Have I Been This Angry at an Author Review: I wonder if the same person wrote this book the whole way through...I don't think so since the author gave us a scene with the arch-villian at the beginning, and then when he reveals the true murderer at the end, you find that he outright lied to you because there was no way the scenes with the killer in the beginning could possibly have happened (did you forget you wrote those?). Add to this, the gratuitous killing of the lead male character (gratuitous in that it served no purpose and the guy did not even die in a bizarre plot twist) and you realize he was killed off because the author did not want to have to change the direction he had originally intended for the novel. Overall, a book that caused me to be mad at the author when I finished, sadly since the initial character development was so promising.
Rating: Summary: It'll Keep You Guessing Tell The VERY End! Review: Yet another amazing book by James Patterson! I've never been disapointed by him yet! The plot is easy to follow and the characters are real. You'll get [pulled] into it and won't be able to put it down. I was guessing tell the VERY END!
Rating: Summary: My head was spinning! Review: I thought the book was good. It kept my interest and it had me guessing. It had your attention from the first chapter. After I finished the book I began to let it sink in and he contradicted himself on some of the facts as to the sex of the killer, and if the victims knew the murderer. The book was good but confusing.
Rating: Summary: What a major disappointment....... Review: The obvious place to start is by saying, 'this is a very poorly written book' by a usually good author. Why Patterson would endeavor to write from a woman's point of view is beyond me. If he is married, he obviously hasn't learned anyting from his wife. When Stephen King started to write a 'woman's' view with 'Gerald's Game' I was suspicious that perhaps his wife Tabitha had actually written it. Why? Because it was so true to gender. Not so with '1st To Die'! Not only does Mr. Patterson display a complete lack of understanding as to how females think, act, and react, he shows total ignorance as to how they speak. Obviously he hasn't listened to many women in his life. The dialogue in the novel is atrocious. It becomes even more painful on the audiobook read by Suzanne Toren. Her ridiculously overly dramatic reading coupled with the totally false-ring of the words makes one cringe. I purchased '2nd Chance' so I could listen in sequence. What a relief Ms. Toren does not read '2nd Chance.' While the plot showed promise at the beginning, it wound through it's final twists so thinnly it could have been a rubber-band, but then again, it was never taut. The reason for some major events in the plot were never made clear. Why the lead character has a medical condition is a mystery in itself. The author shows as little knowledge about the condition as about the female psyche in general. Also, he should be charged with robbery for lifting the 'Jacoby' character straight from the pages of the 'Kay Scarpetta' series. The premise of four women in these particularly professions working together outside the official case is patently preposterous. Women in those positions would only loosely exchange this information and would never join such an alliance. Their 'club' really didn't lend itself to solving the mystery (using the term loosely) anyway. By the end of this novel I could care less about the characters. Patterson should have done us a favor and killed off the female-lead instead of her lover. Then he could let us become better acquainted with an interesting character of his own gender in a 'new and improved' series. If you must explore this novel, do yourself the favor of reading the book. Perhaps you can rescue some enjoyment by saying the words in your own mind rather than enduring the double punishment of bad writing and even worse reading. Better yet, skip it altogether.
Rating: Summary: Couldn't put it down Review: I cannot imagine why so many reviewers have been so critical of this book. I work at home, and my work suffered today, because I truly couldn't put this book down. Mr. Patterson wrote as a woman in the first person, no simple feat, and he assembled a cast of female support characters each of whom made contributions to an innovative plot. It's what it is supposed to be, a damn good read!
Rating: Summary: Poorly written, but then again, it's a thriller Review: Not unlike most modern day thrillers, James Patterson's '1st to die' is a book you can spend a few pleasant-ish hours reading, and then come out at the end thinking you've wasted your time. The plot has no real relevance - the reason why the killer specialises in murdering newly-weds is not explained to an even remotely satisfying degree (the reason being, i assume, because there would BE no plausible explanation without delving in to the deep psychological ramifications, which, by the way, Patterson shows no inclination in doing). The fact that the main character is also suffering from a potentially life-threatening disease whilst carrying out a murder investigation is equally laughable and unoriginal (anyone remember the film Titanic with our hero Leonardo handcuffed without movement whilst the ship is sinking? How unfortunate, unnecessary and completely irrelevant). As for character development, the only remotely realistic character is killed-off, yet again with no relevance to the furthering of the plot, and even he was painfully devoid of any real substance. The characters are superficially described and we therefore learn nothing about them. Despite this tirade of abuse, I must uncomfortably admit that i didn't mind reading the book at all, though i'm not entirely sure why that is. Good effort to the author - he knows how to write a badly written international million copy bestseller. That can't be easy now, can it? p.s. try reading Jeffery Deaver's 'A Maiden's Grave.' A proper psychological thriller.
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