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The 20th Victim by James Patterson & Maxine Paetro

 

The 20th Victim is the twentieth entry in James Patterson's Women's Murder Club series. Like any series with this many books to its name, the storylines are never as good 15 or 20 books in as they were at the beginning, but this one felt closer to those earlier entries than other recent titles have.

This time around Lindsay and Cindy are caught up in trying to solve a cross country killing spree aimed at taking down drug dealers. Cindy has been contacted by the killer, or one of the killers, directly and in her drive for the scoop she and Lindsay get into a disagreement over sharing details of the crimes sooner rather than later. Yuki is also dealing with a drug related crime and wondering whether its right to charge a teenager wheelman for the crimes committed by his passenger. Claire is dealing with some scary health issues, and is not an active participant in solving crimes as she was in past storylines.

As with many of the stories in the Women's Murder Club series, the ending does not come as a surprise and is wrapped up in a neat little bow. I wish the "whodunit" aspect of these books was a little more exciting, but twenty stories in, it is what it is. I found it to be a solid, fast-paced plot and enjoyed the side story of Lindsay's husband Joe trying to help out an old friend.

Final rating: ★★★★☆

ATY prompt 13: A book by an author whose career spanned more than 21 years

Popsugar Challenge prompt 50: A free book from from your TBR list (gifted, borrowed, library)


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