AudioMysteries.Net

Title: The 6^th Target
Author: James Patterson & Maxine Paetro
Reader: Carolyn McCormick
Audiobook: 2007
Unabridged
Length: 8 hours

Ears: 2

Rent: audiomysteries.com

In this sixth outing of the Woman’s Murder Club, the authors stick to the formula used previously – piling on three plots that have very little connection other than the main character San Francisco Police Sergeant Lindsay Boxer.

The “A” plot involves a mass shooting on a crowded ferry. Four people are dead and Lindsay’s friend and fellow Murder Club member, Claire Washburn is the fifth person shot while trying to disarm the mentally deranged shooter. My first impression listening to the early part of the book was that this storyline was too quickly resolved with an unexpected confession. But wait! Much more is to follow as this plot shifts to the trial where Murder Club member, Assistant District Attorney Yuki Castellano prosecutes.

At the end of part one of the book, the above-mentioned confession, the “B” plot takes over with what seems to be an original and interesting kidnap story. A brilliant little girl is taken in broad daylight from a park with her nanny who is quickly killed. The kidnappers ask for nothing - there seems to be no motive at all. Boxer investigates and finds a connection to earlier kidnapping. This caught my attention and seemed well worth the effort. I even spent time trying to guess the motive, which means I’m engaged with the story.

However, while the investigation details were good on the police procedural front, the plot crashed and burned with a preposterous conclusion that lacked any originality or invention.

Added to these two “major” plots was a throw-away story that involved the fourth Murder Club member. In order to get her into the book, the authors gave her a psycho neighbor who seems to be killing residents of the high rise where she has recently moved.

A major problem with this book is the structure. The weakness is particularly apparent in the audio book version. The three separate plots are not well integrated. They do not appear one after the other, but rather sort of interspersed. As a listener, I found that I had forgotten the details of the first story while the kidnapping plot unfolded. Then we bounce back to the courtroom part of the book and leave the kidnapping for quite a long period. The third plot is just sandwiched in so that any pacing is completely lost and the listener is left adrift. I was rather anxious to finish the book – not because I wanted to get to the resolution, but because I had lost interest.

If this all wasn’t disappointing enough, Patterson & Paetro try to give Boxer some character development with one of the most cliché-strewn relationships that has appeared in recent memory. The dialog between Lindsay and her sometimes boyfriend Joe is almost laughably trite and unoriginal.

Carolyn McCormick reads with assurance and experience. But there are moments that you just loose track of individual characters. That’s not so much a function of her reading, rather the writing doesn’t make the characters distinctive, so it’s rather difficult for the reader to breathe life into them. Also, as I mentioned in my review of book 5, what gives with these short chapters. Over 135 chapters in a relatively short book, I don’t get that at all. I could have lived without the dramatic mood music, and echo effects at the beginning of each chapter. It probably added a good 15 minutes to the over-all length.

This book comes at an inopportune time for Patterson. The ABC television series “The Woman’s Murder Club” loosely based on the characters in these books has been a moderate success and my guess is that may attract people to the books. The first few books in this series were quite enjoyable, but as the numbers have gotten higher, the quality seems to have gotten lower. Let’s hope book 7 is the charm and they get back on track.

Reviewed on 12/2/07 by Robert W. Karp