21st Birthday by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro

Description from Amazon:

Detective Lindsay Boxer vows to protect a young woman from a serial killer long enough to see her twenty-first birthday in this thrilling Women’s Murder Club novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author James Patterson.

When young wife and mother Tara Burke goes missing with her baby girl, all eyes are on her husband, Lucas. He paints her not as a missing person but a wayward wife—until a gruesome piece of evidence turns the investigation criminal.

While Chronicle reporter Cindy Thomas pursues the story and M.E. Claire Washburn harbors theories that run counter to the SFPD’s, ADA Yuki Castellano sizes Lucas up as a textbook domestic offender ... who suddenly puts forward an unexpected suspect.

If what Lucas tells law enforcement has even a grain of truth, there isn’t a woman in the state of California who’s safe from the reach of an unspeakable threat.

 

I have read numerous James Patterson books, but when it was rumoured he was using a ghostwriter and they started becoming the same story over and over, I decided enough was enough. I’m really glad this was from the library and I didn’t buy it.

 

It started off well with the missing woman’s mother asking for help from Cindy, which eventually gets Lindsay involved. The fact that a baby is missing was also concerning. With the husband being the prime suspect, it starts off rapidly but soon turns into a bizarre set of he said/he said. I say bizarre as there is no plot twist as such, but rather info being fed to you bit by bit supporting two possibilities right until the end when the story finishes and you go: “Huh?”

 

The 21^st birthday premise didn’t even play out for an actual storyline, and there is a scene that maybe should have come with a trigger warning at the beginning. The girls in the club are becoming quite annoying too. Their dinners and what they eat and drink are really not that interesting to me, so do not need to be harped on as much. The courtroom scenes were weak, the reasoning and evidence were sketchy, and the rushed ending didn’t work at all. It’s difficult not to give away spoilers, but some of the girls’ reactions were not normal considering what happened.

 

It just feels like the reader is being fed that the girls can do no wrong and we must just accept the stories as they will be solved and all will be fine with everyone. Patterson stories used to be light but fulfilling. This one was light and had no substance. I am rather disappointed.