A DEGREE TOO FAR (3rd Degree - James Patterson)

Member Name: stuleg

Product:	3rd Degree - James Patterson
Date:	17/07/04 (83 review reads)
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?It was a clear, calm, lazy April morning, the day the worst week of my life began.?

San Francisco Homicide Lieutenant Lindsay Boxer is enjoying some much needed leisure time with her friend and confident Jill Bernhadt, they are enjoying a jog along a beautiful San Francisco street when a massive explosion rips through a nearby townhouse, Lindsay rushes into the burning remains of the building to rescue a child and in doing so becomes involved in a terrifying world of terrorism and murder, three bodies are found in the houses wreckage but worst still a baby is missing without trace and the family au pair has become a prime suspect. The townhouse was owned by a high flying Internet millionaire and was been targeted by a terror group known only as ?August Spies? who are exacting revenge on what they see as corporate greed and big business leaders getting rich on the back of the ordinary man. When a second prominent businessman is murdered in horrendous circumstances Lindsay decides to enlist the help of her three female friends who make up the Woman?s Murder Club, Claire Washburn a Chief Medical Examiner and Chronicle reporter Cindy Thomas join Lindsay and Jill (An Assistant District Attorney) in trying to get to the heart of what drives ?August Spies?. The terror group promise to execute someone every three days but little do the Woman?s Murder Club realise how close too home these threats will hit. Worse still, an upcoming economic summit of the G8 countries is identified as a target for a spectacular finale from the terror group, which leaves the Woman?s Murder Club with the seemingly impossible task of stopping them before it is too late.

Damn, I did not enjoy this book, and I feel almost guilty for admitting it. You see, James Patterson
is amongst my favourite authors, I cannot wait for his newest book to land on my door mat and I usually devour it in a matter of hours, but 3rd Degree left me a little frustrated and dissatisfied. The Woman?s Murder Club has featured in two previous Patterson books, 1st To Die and 2nd Chance, and these two books worked well, not too over the top or exaggerated but rather more subtle and believable. The entirely female group can only be good in that they are four powerful and independent Women at the very top of their professions, and yet 3rd Degree did not leave me with the ?More power to you Sister? type feeling I got from the first two books. The flow of the book is good although the ending seems to happen very quickly and predictably compared to the rest, the characters have their credibility stretched just that bit too far which left me thinking these things simply would not happen in the real world, even a real world inhabited by terrorists and murderers. Many of the scenarios are just too convenient to be plausible and so spoil the credibility of the book and its characters. Yes there are a few twists and turns along the way, and one or two surprises, but even those were obvious to me long before they actually happened, and thus not really surprising at all. It?s just a book too far in the Woman?s Murder Club series as far as I am concerned.

Much as it pains me, I cannot recommend 3rd Degree to potential buyers. In my opinion it is the worst book James Patterson has penned, and rather sullies the whole Woman?s Murder Club series for me. The first two books were a joy to read and yet 3rd Degree undoes a lot of the hard work and character building put into them. It actually took me over a week to read 3rd Degree, with me constantly finding something better to do with my time. In the end I read t
he last sixty or so pages simply to get the book out of the way, and that cannot be a good sign when reading any book. A mesely two stars out of five from me, with 3rd Degree being purely for die hard Patterson fans, and even they may not enjoy it. Personally I hope that this is the last chapter of the Woman?s Murder Club, the first two were good, but this last one is not.

Price: - £9.89 at Amazon.co.uk
£7.19 at uk.bol.com
Hardcover: - 278 pages
Publisher: - Headline
ISBN: - 0755300238

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