Fourth of July by James Patterson

From the back cover: After losing one of its own, Lindsay Boxer and the Women's Murder Club make a courageous return for their fourth and most chilling case ever--one that could easily be their last. A young girl is killed in crossfire after a routine arrest goes terribly wrong, and Lt. Lindsay Boxer has to defend herself against a charge of police brutality. In a landmark trial that transfixes the nation, Lindsay fights to save her career and her sanity.

While awaiting trial, Lindsay escapes to the beautiful town of Half Moon Bay, but the peaceful community there is reeling from a string of unspeakable murders. Working with her friends in the Women's Murder Club, Lindsay finds a link between these killings and a case she worked on years before-an unsolved murder that has haunted her ever since. As summer comes into full swing, Lindsay battles for her life on two fronts: before a judge and jury as her trial comes to a climax, and facing unknown adversaries who will do anything to keep her from the truth about the killings--including killing again. It all comes to a head before the big annual 4th of July celebration on the waterfront at Half Moon Bay. Patterson fine-tunes the tension like never before in this heart-racing new novel in the bestselling detective series to debut in years.

This was great book! I was coming into the series at the fourth book but it didn't slow me down at all. Patterson and his co-author, Maxine Paetro, brought all the characters to life vividly so I knew everybody without hesitation and was able to follow the plot easily. Easy as figuring out who was who was...I didn't figure out whodunit. I knew one character was somehow going to end up a bad egg but I didn't imagine the ending scene and who was involved - that's good - I like the suspense to keep going until the very end! This book was one that just made me say, "Wow - no wonder James Patterson is so popular!" I'm going to have my eyes open looking for the first three in the series.

This book is my "F" for the A-Z Reading Challenge! Click on the logo to see my progress.







This is also one of my books for the 2009 Audio book Challenge. 7/12 completed on that one - click on the button to see how it's going!