Book #8 - The 6th Target by James Patterson

I have long been a fan of James Patterson’s novels. This began in high school when my 10th grade English teacher allowed us to select our own books for a reading project, and if I remember correctly, three of my four selections were books by Patterson.

This book, The 6th Target, is the sixth book in the Women’s Murder Club series, which I started reading prior to this 100 book challenge. In the series, a San Francisco police officer, Lindsay Boxer, and her friends – Cindy, a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle; Claire, the chief medical examiner, and Yuki, an attorney in the DA’s office – work together to solve murder mysteries in the San Francisco area. I know it’s not groundbreaking literary achievement, but a quick, entertaining read nonetheless.

Patterson has been writing novels with the help of secondary authors for some time, and the quality of his plotlines has noticeably diminished. In this book, there were three crimes that struck the members of the Women’s Murder Club. First, a disturbed homeless man opened fire on a crowded ferry boat, on which Claire happened to be one of his targets. Although she survived, four others were killed, and Yuki took on the case for the DA’s office, trying to prove that the killer was not criminally insane, as his defense was claiming. The second crime focused on the kidnapping and trafficking of wealthy children, which Lindsay worked to resolve and the third involved a crazy tenant living in Cindy’s apartment building who was terrorizing other residents.

In the earlier novels, Patterson would not have muddied the story with so many crimes, unless he was to reveal in the end how they were connected in some interesting, albeit nearly impossible way. But with The 6th Target, I was disappointed that he couldn’t develop one of the crimes enough to make it stand on its own to carry the storyline.

I believe there is a seventh novel in the series, and maybe one day I’ll read it. But for now, I think I’ll try out some new authors and see if they can turn me into a loyal fan, as Patterson once did.