The 8th Confession (Women's Murder Club Series #8)

by James Patterson, Maxine Paetro

Overview

Join the Women's Murder Club on an exhilarating thrill ride as love and murder test their friendships like never before.


Someone is killing the richest people in the city-and the Women's Murder Club will pay a high price for hunting him. At the party of the year, San Francisco's most glamorous couple is targeted by a killer-and it's the perfect murder. While Detective Lindsay Boxer investigates the high-profile killings, a saintly street preacher is brutally executed. Reporter Cindy Thomas inquires into this neglected case and discovers the victim may have had very dark secrets.


As the search for two criminals tests the limits of the Women's Murder Club, Lindsay sees sparks fly between Cindy and Lindsay's partner, Detective Rich Conklin. The Club now faces its toughest challenge: Will love destroy all that the four friends have built?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780446561334
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	02/23/2010
Series:	Women's Murder Club Series
Pages:	367
Sales rank:	39,236
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

James Patterson has had more New York Times bestsellers than any other writer, ever, according to Guinness World Records. Since his first novel won the Edgar Award in 1977 James Patterson's books have sold more than 300 million copies. He is the author of the Alex Cross novels, the most popular detective series of the past twenty-five years, including Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider. He writes full-time and lives in Florida with his family.

Hometown:

Palm Beach, Florida

Date of Birth:

March 22, 1947

Place of Birth:

Newburgh, New York

Education:

B.A., Manhattan College, 1969; M.A., Vanderbilt University, 1971

Website:

http://www.jamespatterson.com

Read an Excerpt

The 8th Confession

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By Patterson, James

Little, Brown and Company

Copyright © 2009 Patterson, James
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780316018760

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Prologue

BUS STOP

One

THE OLD CHROME-YELLOW school bus crawled south on Market Street at half past seven that May morning. Its side and back windows were blacked out, and a hip-hop hit throbbed into the low- lying mist that floated like a silk veil between the sun and San Francisco.

Got my ice

Got my smoke

Got my ride

Ain’t got no hope

Hold ya heads up high

Don’t know when

Ya gonna die. . . .

The traffic light changed to yellow at the intersection of Fourth and Market. The stop-sign arm at the driver’s side of the school bus swung out, the four-way hazard lights burned amber, and the vehicle came to a halt.

To the right of the bus was a shopping mall, a huge one: Bloomingdale’s, Nordstrom, the windows papered with large Abercrombie posters of provocative half- naked teens in black and white.

To the left of the bus was a blue Ford van and then one of two islands splitting the road — a staging area for bus passengers and tourists.

Two cars behind the school bus, Louise Lindenmeyer, office manager, late for work, braked her old gray Volvo. She buzzed down her window and glared at that goddamned school bus.

She’d been stuck on its tailpipe since Buena Vista Park, then watched it pull away from her at the light at Fifth and Market as a stream of traffic took the turn and pulled in front of her.

And now that bus had stuck her at a light . . . again.

Louise heard a shout. “Hey, asshole!”

A man in his shirtsleeves, tie flapping, face bunched up, dried shaving cream under his left ear, walked past her car to give the bus driver hell.

A horn honked, and another, and then a cacophony of horns.

The light was green.

Louise took her foot off the brake and at that instant felt a concussive shock, her ears ringing as she saw the roof of the school bus explode violently upward.

Chunks of burning metal, steel-and-glass shrapnel, shot out in all directions faster than gunfire. A mushroom cloud like that of a small A-bomb formed above the bus, and the box-shaped vehicle became a fireball. Oily smoke colored the air.

Louise saw the blue van in the lane to the left of the bus bloom with flame, then blacken in front of her eyes.

No one got out of the van!

And now the blaze rushed at the silver Camry directly in front of her. The gas tank blew, and fire danced over the car, consuming it in vivid, leaping flames.

The bunch-faced man pulled himself up off the pavement to the hole where her passenger-side window had been. His shirt was gone. His hair was black frizz. The skin of his face was draped over his collarbone like tissue paper.

Louise recoiled in horror, grappled with her door handle as fire lapped at the hood of her Volvo. The car door opened and the heat rushed in.

That’s when she saw the skin of her own arm still on the steering wheel, as if it were a glove turned inside out. Louise couldn’t hear the businessman’s horrified screams or her own. It was as though her ears had been plugged with wax. Her vision was all dancing spots and blurry shapes.

And then she was sucked down into a well of black.

Continues...

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Excerpted from The 8th Confession by Patterson, James Copyright © 2009 by Patterson, James. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Editorial Reviews

First, there was the "perfect" double homicide, the murder of San Francisco's most celebrated society couple. Then, another slaying; the victim, a populist preacher with a local following. As the members of the Women's Murder Club and a pesky local reporter probe the killings, pressure and suspense continue to mount. This Women's Murder Club installment will leave James Patterson fans panting for more.

Mystery, mayhem and murder most foul abound in this eighth entry to Patterson's enduring mystery series. The four members of the Women's Murder Club are pulled into the investigation of three deaths: a homeless man called Bag Man Jesus, whose face has been mutilated, and a glamorous couple from San Francisco's upper elite, who are just as dead as Bag Man but whose bodies look untouched. With its shifting points of view and multiple characters, this audio book would be a daunting task for any narrator, but Carolyn McCormick is up for the challenge. The reader for several earlier Women's Murder Club novels, she renders the characters with ease. Although her vocal tone may verge on strident at times, her earnest delivery keeps the story moving briskly. A Little, Brown hardcover (Reviews, May 11). (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

"Patterson never, and I mean never, disappoints."—Larry King, USA Today

"James Patterson is king of the bestseller hill."—Publishers Weekly

"Patterson has mastered the art of writing page-turning bestsellers."—Chicago Sun-Times

"The Man Who Can't Miss."—Lev Grossman, Time

"When it comes to construction a harrowing plot, author James Patterson can turn a screw all right."—New York Daily News

"America's #1 storyteller."—Forbes

From the Publisher

"America's #1 storyteller."

Forbes

"When it comes to construction a harrowing plot, author James Patterson can turn a screw all right."

New York Daily News

"The Man Who Can't Miss."

Lev Grossman - Time

"Patterson has mastered the art of writing page-turning bestsellers."

Chicago Sun-Times

"Patterson never, and I mean never, disappoints."

Larry King - USA Today

"The ending was so mind blowing and sublime I immediately wished I had another Patterson novel to pick up..."

bookalicio.us

"The 8^th Confession is Patterson (with Maxine Paetro) at his best, telling two equaling compelling stories and providing two equally satisfying resolutions."

CurledUp.com

"Add some very well-written erotica that steams up the pages without hijacking the book, a narrative that flows right off the page and into your mind at breakneck speed, and what's not to love?...It doesn't get much better than this."

BookReporter.com

The Man Who Can't Miss.
— Time

Lev Grossman

Patterson never, and I mean never, disappoints.
— USA Today

Larry King

Carolyn McCormick gives the impression of multiple narrators with powerful characterizations of victims, detectives, and murder suspects in two intricate San Francisco killings. The spree-style murder of a glamorous millionaire couple reveals that the killer stalked his victims and chose his moment—leaving no evidence behind. In addition, the murder of a homeless preacher, Bagman Jesus, appears to be random until reporter Cindy Thomas discovers he wasn’t the saint everyone thought. McCormick's versatile range and vocal skills portray lead Detective Lindsay Boxer and her partner, Rich Conklin, with decisiveness, and even a love interest. She perfectly renders their commitment to work the homeless case on personal time. Add meth labs, drugs, and poisonous snakes—and McCormick delivers a high-octane thriller that won't disappoint. G.D.W. © AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine

MAY 2009 - AudioFile