Rating: 
Summary: Definitely wait for the paperback
Review: I will let the others review the plot and I will tackle the lack of words. I would not recommend spending money on the hardbound version. The author had chapters that were one and two pages long which means that words were only printed on half of the pages. The format actually interrupted the flow of the story.
Any English teacher would give back a paper submitted like this and would ask the 300 odd pages to be condensed to 200 pages.Don't spend extra money on the hardbound book.
Rating: 
Summary: Nice try but try harder
Review: I have read almost all of your books and have found them well written, however this one was far from it. The writing was sloppy, poorly researched and the dialogue intended to be cute, more often than not, wasn't. James, write solo. More is not always better. I also think your editor let you down. Take your time and let's have the old James back again and in rare form for your next book. Hey, no one wins all the time.
Rating: 
Summary: A good read
Review: Not great, but good. I enjoy Patterson's books, but I can't say I wait for his next publication on tenter hooks -- like I do with Dennis Lehane and Michael Connolly.
Rating: 
Summary: Save your money!
Review: I bought the audio tape. Save your money! Not only is the plot predictable, it is unbelievable.(Policewoman who is investigating a "monster" chases him with no backup/ dead cell phone (obviously no car charger) then takes on 6 guys.) Also, readers were bad! Female reader pronounced the opera Aida (eyeeeeda) aaaaadeeeah! Male reader trying to sound threatening sounded like a high school kid. This was my first Patterson - I guess I haven't missed anything!
Rating:
Summary: No 3rd chance for me
Review: I purchased the unabridged tape. I found the readers, both female and male, to be very irritating. The lady cop was Wonder Woman out of costume with a foul mouth. The other women just too superior for words. The woman's murder club is just too too politically correct for me. I tried book one and should have known better, but bought this one because I thought it had to be better. It wasn't.
Rating:
Summary: Poor read
Review: This was a bad read. It was so much the worse becuase I appreciate the author's potential. I usually enjoy Mr. Paterson's work, but this one will have me second guessing the decision to purchase another by him.
Rating:
Summary: Patterson was snoozing when he "wrote" this one...
Review: Yes, I jumped on the bandwagon to read another James Patterson novel. This is my first with his new crimesolvers, the Women's Murder Club. And although there were some twists and turns in the plot that kept me going until the last page, I found this book to be pedestrian at best. I don't know who Andrew Gross is, but Patterson should lose him. It was difficult to decide which was worse - - the sloppy editing or writing. For example, has anyone heard of Xena the Warrior Woman? FYI, she's the warrior princess. Lindsey spun that Explorer around more than once on the same page. What designer jacket is Jill going to toss aside next? And how does one see a tattoo amidst the a shootout's aftermath where the bullets hit the intended target? If this book was written with longer chapters and a smaller font, it would have been only about 150 pages.
I have avidly read and anticipate Patterson's books, especially his Alex Cross novels. And I applaud the idea of the Women's Murder Club. However, the women are nowhere as strong or likeable as Alex Cross, at least not yet. Hopefully they'll improve. If not, there are so many other books and so little time to read them.
Rating:
Summary: ok ......
Review: I must agree with almost everyone else that this was not up to James Patterson's norm. I usually like to short chapters because it makes it easier to break away but mid way through the book it really started to irritate me, is he trying to break a record for most chapters in a novel???? This did not have the same suspense as '1st to die', I certainly hope the next is better or I may start putting my name on the library waiting list.
Rating:
Summary: Good suspense, but perspective is tilted and inaccurate
Review: Got the CD unabridged version of '2nd Chance' to provide some entertainment on a long road journey this past weekend. It's a good 'listen' overall, but skewed in two key areas I find troublesome. The main problem, and one that another reviewer keyed in on, is the female lead role written by a male author. I don't know why, but very few male authors give a female lead a credible (i.e. a true female perspective) voice in a chosen role and it really shows in '2nd Chance'. A good example of this is Patterson's insistence on having her constantly call the bad guys 'bastards'. In one dialogue, she calls him a bastard three consecutive times in as many sentances. I'm not saying a female isn't capable of it, but it comes across as a male saying it with a female reading it. For me, it imparted an air of true plastic several times in the dialogue. Another big issue I have (and admittedly perhaps influenced by Tom Clancy's superlative accuracy) is, to be blunt, the author understands zero, zip, nada about firearms. Period. He constantly throws out the typical fodder for a firearm-related situation, but he is technically inept in understanding them. An example goes something like this, 'I drew my Glock and flicked the safety off...'. Three separate times, our heroine flicks her Glock's safety off. Only one problem with this: A Glock doesn't HAVE a safety; it uses a 'Safe Action' trigger with NO external safety. There is NOTHING to 'flick off'! He hits it again with a description of a PSG sniper rifle, stating a bad guy 'screwed the barrel onto the weapon, et al', but again, no research. A PSG doesn't have a barrel that can be taken off the weapon. Guess it could, if you had access to a 150 ton press, but most bad guys dispense with carrying these around. More than twice he expounds on the use of a 40 caliber projectile; once from the PSG sniper rifle (which is 30 caliber, not 40) and again in our heroine's fathers old police revolver (again, they were .38 or .357 caliber. The .40 caliber didn't even come into popularity until the 1980s; long after our lead character's father had retired from policework). I'll admit upfront, Tom Clancy spoiled me on this, but I did expect more from Patterson. Overall, an enjoyable book, but one that has the air of a creation for Oprah's Book Club, rather than the creation of a true heroine raised up from the ranks of homicide detective, having the necessary 'street experience' one would have coming from this background. And since he created her as such, I was expecting more in a technical background rather than a 'As a male, I THINK this is what a female would say' viewpoint. Picky? Yeah, it's picky. And at [a good price] for the CD set, I feel more than justified in being picky.
Rating: 
Summary: GREAT FOLLOW-UP TO 1ST TO DIE.
Review: Patterson just keeps cranking out good books. This is another example. Read 1st TO DIE; then this one. You'll be glad you did.
| 
