At least I have BUPA (The 5th Horseman - James Patterson)

Member Name: freediveheaven

Product:	The 5th Horseman - James Patterson
Date:	16/07/07 (160 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fast paced and wel written

Disadvantages: Bit on the short side

After some distinctly average attempts in the recent past I’m pleased to say that in my opinion The 5th Horseman is a welcome return to the previous high standards that Patterson has achieved as a thriller writer. Admittedly this book continues the trend of writing with a co-author, in this case Maxine Paetro, which usually signals a drop in quality but with this fifth instalment to features the Women’s Murder Club Patterson has served up a gripping fast paced novel with plenty of twists and turns.

The Women’s Murder Club is an informal group of friends whose job roles mean that they support each other in the investigation of crimes, the lead character is Lieutenant Lindsay Boxer of the San Francisco Police Department and the other members of the group are Yuki Castellano a lawyer, Claire Washburn the head Medical Examiner for the SFPD and finally Cindy (not sure of surname) who is a top investigative reporter.

This being the 5th in the series, previous titles are easy to spot as they all make use of a number in the title, hence 1st to Die is the opening book and so on. Whilst this one can be read independently on its own I would recommend starting with the first book in the series as although each character is briefly introduced in this one references are made to past events and by starting at the beginning you will get a better appreciation of how both the characters and their friendships have developed over time and also how the dynamics of the informal club have changed.

In this book the basic plot has a series of undetected murders taking place at San Francisco Municipal Hospital, patients who are seemingly recovering and about to leave hospital are killed however in most cases it appears to be hospital errors which cause the death. When one of the group is directly affected by this Lindsay begins to dig into the background of the case. At the same time there is a high profile legal case against the hospital for mal practice and also Lindsay has her hands full investigating a series of strange murders where the bodies are moved and posed after the event.

One of the things I liked about this latest instalment is that all four members of the club are involved much more in the storyline, in the last couple of books the focus has been two much on Lindsay and the other characters have been peripheral, in this storyline while as the police officer Lindsay is automatically at the centre of things there is also a more stronger presence from Yuki in the story. The dynamics of the group are far more present and the fact that although they are all close friends there is also conflict due to the nature of their job roles. There are also some changes made that affect the careers of the main characters and also the personal life of Lindsay s explored a little however there is little change on this front other than the seeds being sown as to the future development of the character.

This is a fast paced novel and it was successful in keeping the eventual plot outcome well hidden, what I particularly liked was the fact that there were clues in the text about the final direction the story would take however I failed to pick up on them correctly and this was a really clever bit of writing as it relied on the natural assumptions that a reader might make in an attempt to solve a problem actually leading them down the wrong path, having read a lot of Patterson work and like other regular readers I know there will be twist to the story and in this book the author out guessed me, for a long time I was confident that I knew the way the story would go and then in a clever ending the story changed. For me this was Patterson back near his best, still not of the quality of his early work that featured Alex Cross.

The only real disappointment with this book is the fact that it is quite short, the hardback copy that I have runs to 339 pages however with Patterson books there is not a lot of text on the page and also the chapters are very short, sometimes only two pages long so a lot of the pages do not contain a full page of text. With another font size and less spacing this book would probably only fill about 240 pages and I found that I read it inside of a day so it is not much use taking this one away with you expecting it to fill a couple of days sunbathing as it will just take up space in your luggage for most of the holiday.

On the plus side the storyline is gripping and well paced with a number of plot twists, the greater involvement of the main characters is much better and as a regular reader some of the other characters in the books are till included which means that Lindsay former detective partner who featured heavily in the fourth book in the series still plays a prominent role.

As usual these days I got my copy through readitswapit.co.uk however there are copies available on Amazon for £5.00 new for the hardcover (£4.59 paperback) or from 40p in the new and used section.

Thanks for reading and rating my review.

Summary: Good return t previous standards