FIRST TO DIE

“I know it’s a cliché,” narrator Lindsay Boxer says, “but that night I made love as if it might never happen again.” James Patterson’s novel about four women who form a Women’s Murder Club to catch a serial killer preying on newlyweds features a cover-to-cover supply of situational and verbal clichés in addition to the one it admits to. Suzanne Toren manages to create some subtleties with her presentation of the four females, especially with the narration of Lindsay Boxer. The voices for the male sidekicks, however, are badly overdone, the audio equivalent of mugging for the camera. The novel is for the most loyal Patterson fans only. G.H. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine [Published: AUG/ SEP 01]