Just Finished Reading 2nd Chance by James Patterson

During the past few months I've begun to explore the fiction of popular American writer James Patterson.  So far, I've read his first-ever two novels as well as the first books in his Alex Cross and Maximum Ride series.  I also recently read 1st to Die, the first volume in his ongoing Women's Murder Club mystery series with increasing numbers with each successive title...I believe he's gotten to book #15 by now.  And the other day I just finished reading 2nd Chance...

So far, it's no contest: the Women's Murder Club series is Patterson's most compelling fiction, and 2nd Chance only bolstered my opinion in that regard.  The stories are based in San Francisco and feature homicide investigator Lindsay Boxer as the main protagonist.  She has three close women friends: an investigative report (Cindy), a medical examiner (Claire), and an assistant district attorney (Jill).  The four meet often and discuss their personal problems and relationships...and more importantly...the developing mystery in the ongoing story.  In this book, someone is apparently committing hate crimes by selecting African-American targets for their serial murders.  Lindsay, thanks in large part to her friends in the "club", discovers a connection between the victims and the police...leading her to investigate who might have a grievance from the past with San Francisco law enforcement.  She also keeps seeing a strange recurring image, while investigating the crimes, of a two-headed beast with a snake's tale: a "chimera".  What does the chimera have to do with hate groups and the murders?  Guess you'll have to read 2nd Chance to find out!

In 1st to Die, Lindsay has her own personal crisis, a rare blood disease, to deal with.  In 2nd Chance, another personal issue comes to the forefront when her father, a former SF cop who abandoned her and her now long-diseased mother twenty years earlier, resurfaces and tries to mend their relationship.  Patterson skillfully managed to weave this subplot into the story's main theme of the murder mystery...

I heartily recommend 2nd Chance and plan to read this series through to the end, just as I have been doing with Sue Grafton's "alphabet mystery" series featuring California private eye Kinsey Millhone.  Both series have very sympathetic protagonists...and you're never quite sure the mystery is completely solved until the very end, when most likely a surprise finish awaits you...

There was a brief television series titled Women's Murder Club, comprising only 13 episodes and featuring the same characters as the books.  It aired from the fall of 2007 to the spring of 2008.  I'll not be making any attempt to watch it, as I am already greatly disappointed in other recent books-to-TV adaptations, most notably The Magicians and Game of Thrones...