1st to Die by James Patterson – a review

This book is the first of a series of novels about the womens murder club. It is written by James Patterson (probably best known for his Alex Cross novels)
1st to Die starts with Inspector Lindsay Boxer who is chasing the murderer of young couples on their wedding day. Lindsay’s best friend is medical examiner Claire and along the way she meets journalist Cindy, and lawyer Jill. They decide to join forces to fight crime, save the world and wear their underwear as outerwear (or something along those lines anyway)
The main suspect in the story is author Jenks who’s first novel was about a man who also killed newlyweds in the same gruesome fashion. He says he was set up, the murder club think otherwise.
This is definitely going to be a review of two parts. On the one hand I enjoyed this book. It was a fun quick read. The story itself, whilst not hugely original nowadays, had enough twists and turns to keep you hooked, and I couldn’t wait to get to the end (in a good way)
However on the other hand there were some bits that let it down, mainly how the women were portrayed. The main character Lindsay was a bit annoying, she spent a lot of time crying which I found a bit ridiculous. Anyone who knows me knows I can cry at anything, but I really don’t think that an established Inspector would walk into a crime scene and burst into tears, no matter what else she might be dealing with behind the scenes.
Equally the dialogue between the characters seemed a bit stilted, and unnatural. It would certainly take more than a chance meeting in the toilets for me to suddenly become best friends with someone. There also seemed to be no real explanation as to why they felt the need to club together in the first place and work outside the normal investigation.
I did think this was disappointing, as I’ve read some James Patterson before and always enjoyed them. I felt that this book was a bit rushed and almost as though it was an afterthought. Perhaps it was written purely to give an excuse for the characters getting together. Therefore despite my perceived flaws within 1st to Die I will give the second in this series a go and hopefully the womens murder club improves with age.