Author: James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
Narrator: January LaVoy
Publisher: Hachette Audio
Publication Date: May 2012
Genre: Mystery / Thriller
Buy The Book: Amazon | BN | Audible
Description: Your best friend
Lindsay Boxer is pregnant at last! But her work doesn't slow for a second. When millionaire Chaz Smith is mercilessly gunned down, she discovers that the murder weapon is linked to the deaths of four of San Francisco's most untouchable criminals. And it was taken from her own department's evidence locker. Anyone could be the killer--even her closest friends.
Or a vicious killer?
Lindsay is called next to the most bizarre crime scene she's ever seen: two bodiless heads elaborately displayed in the garden of a world-famous actor. Another head is unearthed in the garden, and Lindsay realizes that the ground could hide hundreds of victims.
You won't know until the 11th hour
A reporter launches a series of vicious articles about the cases and Lindsay's personal life is laid bare. But this time she has no one to turn to--especially not Joe. 11th Hour is the most shocking, most emotional, and most thrilling Women's Murder Club novel ever.
My Thoughts: It’s been over seven years since I last spent time with The Women’s Murder Club and I actually had a few reservations about whether I would be able to pick up where I left off. Happily, for me, this was not the case. One of the remarkable things about this series are the characters and how well developed they are. Within just a few minutes, I felt like I was back in the thick of it with Lindsay, Claire, Cindy and Yuki.
In this edition, Lindsay is pregnant, Cindy and Rich Conklin are engaged but don’t seem to be in a big hurry to make a dash to the altar and Yuki is dating Boxer’s supervisor! Claire was present but didn’t have a significant impact on the events of this story, much like the last one. I really hope she has a larger role in the next book.
Besides dealing with morning sickness, Lindsay is actively investigating the serial killings of several drug dealers and the discovery of several corpse heads in the garden of a famous actor who had been prosecuted and acquitted of his wife’s disappearance and likely murder.
In between all of this, she is also being hounded by a journalist who would rather report innuendo, speculation and conjecture instead of the facts, which puts her relationship with Joe in a precarious position.
I thought the cases were really interesting. Early on in the story, the serial killings of the drug dealers are thought to be the work of a rogue police officer and I was glad that Patterson and Paetro don’t bog the reader down in a lot of irrelevant details that only cloud the story. The revelation of this killer wasn’t a surprise, but the resulting follow-up provided me with many minutes of nail-biting intensity to see how it all played out.
Lindsay has to push hard and be very assertive in getting the green light to investigate the corpse heads. It was pretty gruesome and I figured that in her current condition, Lindsay would take a hard pass on this one. She doesn’t, of course, and I enjoyed the steps she and her team go through to first identify the corpses and then identify the culprit, which was a surprise. I enjoyed the use of forensic anthropology to recreate the faces and facial recognition software to search missing persons cases. It all sounds terribly simple and easy for those who are standing on the sidelines observing, but it’s quite a detailed process, which makes the story all the more interesting.
Patterson and Paetro have a skillful writing team rapport and I really enjoy their collaboration. This audio was narrated by January LaVoy, who does a wonderful job of bringing the characters to life. Her performance draws the reader in, giving a sense that the reader is part of the events occurring, rather than just reading the book. Several scenes carried a lot of emotion and Ms. LaVoy conveys it very well.
My Final Verdict: I really enjoyed spending time with these characters again and look forward to what they get into next. I recommend this entire series to fans of mysteries, thrillers and police procedurals who enjoy characters that demonstrate real world lives, problems, solutions, disappointments and successes.
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