Customer Reviews

3rd Degree

5 star:		(74)
4 star:		(63)
3 star:		(28)
2 star:		(17)
1 star:		(21)

 

 

Back from "1st To Die" and "2nd Chance", the Women's Murder Club finds terror in unexpected places in this third outing. Starring San Francisco PD Homicide Lt. Lindsay Boxer, friends newspaper reporter Cindy, Medical Examiner Claire, and Asst. District Attorney Jill have somewhat larger roles than the light supporting cast they portrayed in the two earlier books. We're also glad to see the adolescent dialogue from the last pairing of Gross and Patterson was replaced by much more meaningful interactions between the foursome. (We might quibble that it's an unlikely group from the viewpoint of a three-way conflict of interest: cop, DA, and reporter). Keeping in touch with modern times, involvement by Homeland Security personnel and a plot that featured seemingly random acts of terror gave the novel an up-to-date tone. And two subplots, involving spousal abuse of Jill, and a love interest between Boxer and Molinari, the Homeland guy, added to the torrid pace of the main and complex mystery for which Patterson is well known.

When a home is bombed and then a death by deadly chemical is followed by another bombing at a mall, it's clear that some group is out for revenge. We get to meet a few of the bad guy players from some first person dialogue of their own, but their identities are not all revealed until the somewhat surprising ending. The usual short chapters (111 in like 340 pages), plus a lot of blank pages from five Parts, make the book little more than a two hour blitz. But the shock comes from a direct attack on one of the club members, nothing new to the other novels in the set.

This series may not be quite as hard core as Patterson's more movie-oriented thrillers, but the generally likable heroine and her friends, along with a suspenseful storyline, is quite good enough for an enjoyable read. You might want to save it for the beach!

This third book in the Women's Murder Club series, is, I think, not as good as the first two. I found it hard to get personally involved in Lindsey's fight to find terrorists. Not only that, it was almost unbelievable in parts (and so senselessly graphic). How can one woman in the Police force almost singlehandedly solve a huge case like this? I kept wondering where the rest of the police force was. That's what I mean by stretching it. It also wasn't easy to know before reading the book that one of the women in the club was going to be killed. During the first part of the book, I kept wondering who it would be and didn't concentrate on the plot the way I should. Personally I think reviewers and book jacket writers expose too much of the actual story, and it's almost a good idea not to read these before reading the book (especially with a thriller like this one). I don't know - after how much I loved the first two in the series, I found this one sadly disappointing. I doubt whether I'll bother with others in this series.

Apart from the break-neck pace, I love the way Patterson squeezes in contemporary facts and events in his thrillers.

This latest in the Women's Murder Club series is every bit as nailbiting as the first two, but with a slight twist: this time, the solution to a grisly string of bombings cannot come without the expense of having to lose someone very close to our amateur detectives.

Riveting plot twists. Bullet paced turn of events. This novel packs in just about everything you would expect from a wholesome crime thriller. If you've read the first 2 in the series, you'd probably be even better off as you could relate more easily to the fears and idiosyncrasies of our intriguing protagonists.

So feed the cat, turn on the air conditioning and slip into bed with this very, very satisfying nailbiter.

This book reads nothing like the earlier two in the "Woman's Murder Club" series. Calling it trite fluff is kind. I realize Mr. Patterson is a multi-millionaire, but allowing such dribble to be put out with his name on it is a quick way to lose his audience and his income. I pay for a novel by a particular, proven author and I expect it to be of the caliber of the past works of that author. Shame on you Mr. Patterson.

I normally love reading the reviews - it helps me decide on a book when I'm going back and forth on my decision to buy it. Although I already knew I wanted to buy 3rd Degree, I checked out the reviews. A few posts ago, someone completely gave away a MAJOR twist in the book. I shouldn't even say "gave away" because that might mean they hinted at it and I figured it out -and that would be alright. But no, they flat out said what happened in the end. I seriously couldn't believe it.

Everyone is entitled to say what they want, but this section is called "Reviews" and not "The Ending of the Book". Please put "SPOILER" in your subject if you're going to insist on giving away the endings of books.

"The Women's Murder Club", introduced to legions of new fans in "1st To Die" and continued to wonderful effect in "2nd Chance", is an intelligent, plausible, modern idea whose time has come. Lindsay Boxer, a police lieutenant in charge of San Francisco's homicide division, Cindy Thomas, lead crime reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, Jill Bernhardt, assistant DA and Claire Washburn, Chief Medical Examiner, are four sharp, rising professionals in the field of law enforcement who have broken the proverbial male glass ceiling and have discovered the synergy of brainstorming their way to a solution of their mutual problems.

In "3rd Degree", the high speed action starts from the very first page as our ladies are confronted with the brutal terrorist attacks of an out-of-time 60s fringe group of misguided Berkley radicals targeting what they would label stereotypical mega-rich corporate robber barons and their families - better known to the rest of the world as millionaires. With the puffed up rhetoric of the far, far left, they take credit for one of their attacks with a note signing themselves as "August Spies" - "We have declared war on the agents of greed and corruption in our society. No longer can we sit back and tolerate the powered class, whose only birthright is arrogance, as they enrich themselves on the oppressed, the weak, and the poor."

The thriller part of the novel is a well crafted and nicely paced police procedural that takes us through vignettes involving forensics, profiling, post mortems, cooperation between the LA municipal police force and the FBI, the plodding details of policing at street level, and even the moral dilemma posed by the tragic requirement to withhold details of an investigation when this action may place the public in harm's way! The solution is both satisfying and credible and even the bad guys are well-developed characters that come alive off the page with their twisted motivation and hatred of the world around them.

As he did so well in "2nd Chance", Patterson continues to lift his tale above the realm of ordinary thriller by realistically allowing the personal lives of the four ladies to intrude on their professional lives (or is that vice-versa?). Lindsay falls hard for a professional colleague whose base of operations is clear across the country and Jill struggles with the emotional roller coaster of a husband's abuse that has recently escalated into the physical after she lost her baby by miscarriage in "2nd Chance". (I was, however, more than a little miffed to discover that the church pastor Cindy fell in love with in "2nd Chance" and Lindsay's ex-cop father, both of whom seemed to hold out so much promise for future sub-plots and character development were simply ignored in "3rd Degree" - sigh!)

Well done! I'll be out looking for #4 in the series shortly!

Paul Weiss

3rd Degree was good and I liked it. Lindsay was jogging like usually when a house blew up and got caught on fire. She went to rescue the child and got out. When she got out of the building. She found a mysterious note and put the Women's Murder Club on high alert. But then she realized that 1 of the members are keeping a secret. And she founds out that one of them are going to die. Which 1 is it? This is very good and joyable. I can't wait till 4th Of July come out so i can buy and read it. But the most funny part about me is that I'm only 13 years old and reading books like this. I highly recommend this book to everyone. If you haven't read 1st To Die and 2nd Chance I think you should read them before you read this.

While I did like 3rdegree, I found it very lackluster in comparison to the other books of the series and I could have swore that I read this plot before in another James Patterson book called Jack and Jill. While I do have an admiration for Patterson's writing, I can't deny the fact that he's losing his edge as a writer (The Alex Cross books has not been good for a while). I don't know what he has in store for his next book in this series but if it's a lackluster as this, it will definitely be the last book I will read from him.

Having been a Patterson for some years now, I couldn't wait till this book came out. It was such a good book that I started it the night I got it and finished it by the next morning! It was one that I found hard to put down. I don't think I have yet read a Patterson book I haven't liked but I'm still making my way through his books. Definitely a must read. I hope he keeps up with this series. Like his Alex Cross series this an excellent series. Good strong lead characters with good supporting ones as well. The stories are excellent and not hard to follow.

I lost interest in this one early on. First Lt. Boxer just happens to be outside the house when it blows up. Then she's the one who bravely runs into the inferno to rescue the child. Then she's the only one who's smart enough to figure out that the red backpack in the street outside the house might be dangerous. None of the fire personnel on the scene, and none of the cops, is smart enough to even think of this. Then, when it's time for the police department to do a press briefing on the exploding house, who does it? You got it, Lt. Boxer. And finally, when someone needs to be arrested across the bay in Berkeley, SHE'S the one who travels to Berkeley to make the arrest. Isn't there anyone else in the San Francisco Police Department who can do anything? I put this one down about a third of the way through and won't be picking it up again.