Author's murder factory commits crimes of predictability against two genres

BOOK OF THE DAY: BERNICE HARRISONreviews 8th Confessionby James Patterson with Maxine Paetro Century 360 pp; £18.99

OH BUT that James Patterson is a clever chap. Women who read crime fiction are a massive and growing market and chick lit is a tried and tested money spinner, which must explain why the extraordinary juggernaut of a brand that is James Patterson came up with the Women’s Murder Club – a themed series of books that combines the two genres.

The new book 8th Confessionis (no prizes for guessing, things are simple in this world) the eighth book in the series and like the seven that have gone before, it's selling a gazillion copies to the despair of real crime fans. Patterson's many different books – he launched eight new hardbacks last year alone – outsell JK Rowling, Dan Brown and John Grisham combined, with sales in the UK in 2008 of £9.8 million.

Despite his name appearing in giant red type on the cover, James Patterson famously collaborates with a team of writers who flesh out his plotlines. The co-writer in this case, Maxine Paetro, does get a jacket credit – but in much smaller light grey type.

The Women’s Murder Club are four women living in San Francisco – a police detective, a medical examiner, a DA and a reporter – who help each other solve crimes, meet for dinner in their local Mexican restaurant and dissect each other’s love lives. Of course they’re smart, sassy and attractive – their demi bras (and no, I don’t know what they are either) hit the deck every now and again for the obligatory sex scenes with their dates and the women are sooo supportive of each other.

As characters, they’re cardboard cutouts, the staple of any number of chick lit novels, and the plot they’re given is as thin and predictable as a run-of-the-mill TV crime drama. A number of super-rich, glamorous people, including a rock star, a fashion designer and an heiress, have been murdered and detective Lindsay Boxer is leading the investigation. There is no obvious murder weapon or connection between the good-looking corpses.

The sub-plot revolves around the death of a homeless man, Bagman Jesus, who turns out not to be as saintly as first thought. Journalist Cindy follows his story, while in another plot line that seems to have strayed in from another novel, Yuki is involved in prosecuting a former model for murdering her father and attempting to kill her mother.

The book is strangely paced, the main plot doesn't really take off until a quarter way through, which is highly unusual in crime writing, and the style is maddeningly simple and formulaic. As in the other books in the series, the chapters are bite sized – three to four pages – and italics are used with such unusual regularity it's as if Brand Patterson doesn't quite believe the readers are smart enough to get the point unless it's hammered home in sloped writing. For example "top district attorney Yuki considers her new boyfriend, a doctor (naturally): "She even flashed back on a couple of handsome ratsshe'd dated in her life, not to mention more than a few gorgeous killers." Read that, crime fans and weep.

When Lindsay arrives at a murder scene, the policeman on duty is a “buff young cop” and naturally her own police partner is a “hottie” . Even a chick lit writer would blush at such corny predictability. When the crimes are solved, the murderer’s motivation turns out to be straight from the Ladybird book of psychology – that’s if you last until the final chapter.

Bernice Harrison is an Irish Timesjournalist