The 5th Horseman (Women's Murder Club Series #5) » (Reprint)

Not making any bones about his bid for success, James Patterson once declared he wanted to be known as the king of the page-turners. While that may seem like a pretty grand ambition, Patterson is as worthy of that title as any author working today.

A young mother is recuperating in a San Francisco hospital when she is suddenly gasping for breath. The call button fails to bring help in time. The hospital's doctors, some of the best in the nation, are completely mystified by her death. How did this happen?

APOCALYPSE NEARS.

This is not the first such case at the hospital. Just as patients are about to be released with a clean bill of health, their conditions take a devastating turn for the worse.

Accompanied by the newest member of the Women's Murder Club, Yuki Castellano, Lieutenant Lindsay Boxer probes deeper into the incidents. Could these cases just be appalling coincidences? Or is a maniac playing God with people's lives? When someone close to the Women's Murder Club begins to exhibit the same frightening symptoms, Lindsay fears no one is safe.

Library Journal

Prolific writer Patterson recently introduced listeners to the Women's Murder Club, a group of San Francisco professional women who team up to investigate. The club's leader, Lt. Lindsay Boxer, finds herself facing two maddening crimes. In one of San Francisco's largest hospitals, patients who should have been released after routine treatment are found dead, with buttons placed over their eyes. At the same time, young women are turning up dead in luxury automobiles wearing upscale clothes and expensive perfume. Patterson is highly popular, and this latest book will be gobbled up quickly, but it lacks the suspense and drive of the author's earlier works featuring Alex Cross. The "Club" books are filled with cliches that belong more in a college creative writing class than in a novel bearing the name of such a well-known author. Eyes sparkle, twinkle, squint, glint, and roll; stomachs roil, plummet, gurgle, growl, and twist. Carolyn McCormick does what she can to breathe life into the story, and this work has enough plot twists to recommend it, but it feels as if Patterson and Paetro have been resting on their laurels a bit too long.-Joseph L. Carlson, Allan Hancock Coll., Lompoc, CA Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.