Discover James Patterson’s Women’s Murder Club series
Lindsay Boxer, Cindy Thomas, Claire Washburn and Jill Bernhardt—stars of 1st to Die, 2nd Chance and 3rd Degree—are the founding members of the Women’s Murder Club. Yuki Castellano joins the Club in 4th of July. Together, they solve crimes in their home city of San Francisco and often meet up to talk about clues and life, over Mexican food and drinks at Susie’s.
Meet the Members
Books in Reverse Order
San Franscico detective inspector Lindsay Boxer throws a party when her best friend, Claire Washburn, is named medical examiner of the year. But the party feels more like a crime convention when a concerned father turns up, seeking investigative reporter Cindy Thomas’s help in locating his missing daughter. And she’s not the only one.
Lindsay’s been investigating the deaths of a Jane Doe washed up on a nearby beach, and a young woman found in Golden Gate Park. What if all these cases are connected? What if some kind of human-trafficking crime ring is behind these dead and missing women?
SFPD homicide detective Lindsay Boxer knows her way around a crime scene.
But nothing can prepare her for the shock of recognition: the victim is Warren Jacobi, Lindsay’s onetime partner who rose to chief of police.
A top investigator until the end, Jacobi managed to leave Lindsay a clue.
Following a trail of evidence along the west coast, the Women’s Murder Club pledges to avenge Jacobi’s death before the killer can take another one of their own.
SFPD Sergeant Lindsay Boxer, Medical Examiner Claire Washburn, Assistant District Attorney Yuki Castellano, and crime writer Cindy Thomas gather at one of San Francisco’s finest restaurants to celebrate exciting news: Cindy is getting married.
Before they can raise their glasses, there’s a disturbance in the restaurant. A woman has been assaulted.
Claire examines the victim. Lindsay makes an arrest. Yuki takes the case. Cindy covers it.
The legal strategy is complicated by gaps in the plaintiff’s memory—and the shocking reason behind her ever-changing testimony.
As Yuki leads the prosecution, Lindsay chases down a high-society killer whose target practice may leave the Women’s Murder Club short a bridesmaid … or two.
Reporter Cindy Thomas wrote a book that put him on the bestseller list.
An obsessed maniac has turned Burke’s true-crime story into a playbook. And is embellishing it with gruesome touches all his own.
Now Lindsay’s tracking an elusive suspect, and the entire Murder Club is facing destruction.
There’s buzz of a last-ditch shipment of drugs and weapons crossing the Mexican border ahead of new restrictive gun laws.
Before Lindsay can act, her top informant tips her to a case that hits disturbingly close to home.
Former cops. Professional hits. All with the same warning scrawled on their bodies:
You talk, you die.
Now it’s Lindsay’s turn to choose.
While Chronicle reporter Cindy Thomas pursues the story and M.E. Claire Washburn harbors theories that run counter to the SFPD’s, ADA Yuki Castellano sizes Lucas up as a textbook domestic offender . . . who suddenly puts forward an unexpected suspect. If what Lucas tells law enforcement has even a grain of truth, there isn’t a woman in the state of California who’s safe from the reach of an unspeakable threat.
The victims were no angels, but are the shooters villains . . . or heroes?
As the holidays approach, Detective Lindsay Boxer and her friends in the Women’s Murder Club have much to celebrate. Crime is down. The medical examiner’s office is quiet. Even the courts are showing some Christmas spirit. And the news cycle is so slow that journalist Cindy Thomas is on assignment to tell a story about the true meaning of the season for San Francisco.
Then a fearsome criminal known only as “Loman” seizes control of the headlines. Solving crimes never happens on schedule, but as this criminal mastermind unleashes credible threats by the hour, the month of December is upended for the Women’s Murder Club. Avoiding tragedy is the only holiday miracle they seek.
While Lindsay is engrossed in her investigation, her husband Joe meets an Eastern European woman who claims to have seen a notorious war criminal — long presumed dead — from her home country. Before Lindsay can verify the woman’s statement, Joe’s mystery informant joins the ranks of the missing women. Lindsay, Joe, and the entire Women’s Murder Club must pull together to protect their city and one another — not from a ghost, but from a true monster.
The hunt for the killer lures Lindsay out of her jurisdiction and impacts her in dangerous ways. She suffers unsettling medical symptoms, and her friends in the Women’s Murder Club warn her against taking the crimes to heart. But with lives at stake, the detective can’t help but follow the case into terrifying terrain.
A decorated officer, loving wife, devoted mother, and loyal friend, Lindsay has always acted with unwavering integrity. But now she is confronting a killer who is determined to undermine it all.
Fifteen months ago, Detective Lindsay Boxer’s life was perfect. She had a beautiful child and a doting husband, Joe, who helped her catch a criminal who’d brazenly detonated a bomb in downtown San Francisco, killing twenty-five people. But Joe wasn’t everything that Lindsay thought he was, and she’s still reeling from his betrayal as a wave of mysterious and possibly unnatural heart attacks claims seemingly unrelated victims across San Francisco.
As if that weren’t enough, the bomber she and Joe captured is about to go on trial, and his defense raises damning questions about Lindsay and Joe’s investigation. Not knowing whom to trust, and struggling to accept the truth about the man she thought she knew, Lindsay must connect the dots of a deadly conspiracy before a brilliant criminal puts her on trial.
As she settles into motherhood and a happy marriage, Lindsay Boxer thinks she has found domestic bliss. But when a beautiful, alluring blonde woman with links to the CIA disappears from the scene of a brutal murder at a downtown luxury hotel, Lindsay’s life begins to unravel. Before she can track down the woman for questioning, a plane crash plunges San Francisco into chaos and Lindsay’s husband Joe vanishes.
The deeper she digs, the more Lindsay suspects that Joe shares a secret past with the mystery blonde. Thrown into a tailspin and questioning everything she thought she knew, Lindsay turns to the Women’s Murder Club for help as she tries to uncover the truth.
With a beautiful baby daughter and a devoted husband, Detective Lindsay Boxer can safely say that her life has never been better. Things seem to be going well for a change when all the members of the Women’s Murder Club gather to celebrate San Francisco Medical Examiner Claire Washburn’s birthday. But the party is cut short when Lindsay is called to a gruesome crime scene, where a woman has been murdered in broad daylight.
As Lindsay investigates, shocking video footage of another crime surfaces: the video is so horrific that it shakes the city to its core. Their faces obscured by masks, the cold blooded criminals on the tape could be anyone-and now all of Lindsay’s co-workers are suspects. As a rash of violence sweeps through San Francisco, and public fear and anger grows, Lindsay and her friends must risk their lives in the name of justice, before it’s too late.
San Francisco Detective Lindsay Boxer is loving her life as a new mother. With an attentive husband, a job she loves, plus best friends who can talk about anything from sex to murder, things couldn’t be better.
Then the FBI sends Lindsay a photo of a killer from her past, and her happy world is shattered. The picture captures a beautiful woman at a stoplight. But all Lindsay sees is the psychopath behind those seductive eyes: Mackie Morales, the most deranged and dangerous mind the Women’s Murder Club has ever encountered.
Lindsay Boxer’s beautiful baby is born! But after only a week at home with her new daughter, Lindsay is forced to return to work to face two of the biggest cases of her career.
A rising star football player for the San Francisco 49ers is the prime suspect in a grisly murder. At the same time, Lindsay is confronted with the strangest story she’s ever heard: An eccentric English professor has been having vivid nightmares about a violent murder and he’s convinced is real. Lindsay doesn’t believe him, but then a shooting is called in-and it fits the professor’s description to the last detail.
Lindsay doesn’t have much time to stop a terrifying future from unfolding. But all the crimes in the world seem like nothing when Lindsay is suddenly faced with the possibility of the most devastating loss of her life.
Lindsay Boxer is pregnant at last! But her work doesn’t slow for a second. When millionaire Chaz Smith is mercilessly gunned down, she discovers that the murder weapon is linked to the deaths of four of San Francisco’s most untouchable criminals. And it was taken from her own department’s evidence locker. Anyone could be the killer-even her closest friends.
Facing a series of vicious articles about her personal life and a brutal crime scene in a famous actor’s garden, Lindsay realizes that the ground beneath her feet holds hundreds of secrets. But this time she has no one to turn to-especially not her husband Joe.
At the same time, Assistant District Attorney Yuki Castellano is prosecuting the biggest case of her life-a woman who has been accused of murdering her husband in front of her two young children. Yuki’s career rests on a guilty verdict, so when Lindsay finds evidence that could save the defendant, she is forced to choose. Should she trust her best friend or follow her instinct?
During an intimate dinner party, a cat burglar breaks into the home of A-list actor Marcus Dowling. When his wife walks in on the thief, the situation quickly teeters out of control, leaving an empty safe and a lifeless body.
The same night, a woman and her infant child are ruthlessly gunned down in an abandoned garage. The killer hasn’t left a shred of evidence, except for a foreboding and cryptic message: WCF, the letters written in blood-red letters.
With two deranged killers on the loose Detective Lindsay Boxer calls on the Women’s Murder Club to help her stop the insane killers. But someone is leaking information to the press-details that only those on the inside could know. As allegations fly that Lindsay is the source, she has to wonder: how much she can trust her closest friends?
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?
As fire after fire consume couples in wealthy, comfortable homes, Lindsay and the Murder Club must race to find the arsonists responsible and get to the bottom of Michael Campion’s disappearance. But suddenly the flames are raging too close to home.
Frightened for her life and torn between two men, Lindsay must find a way to solve the most daunting dilemmas she’s ever faced-at work and at home.
Lindsay Boxer and her new partner in the San Francisco police department are racing to stop a series of kidnappings that has electrified the city: children are being plucked off the streets together with their nannies, but the kidnappers aren’t demanding ransom. Amid uncertainty and rising panic, Lindsay juggles the possibility of a new love with an unsolvable investigation, and the knowledge that one member of the club could be on the brink of death.
And just when everything appears momentarily under control, the case takes a terrifying turn, putting an entire city in lethal danger. Lindsay must make a choice she never dreamed she’d face-with no certainty that either outcome has more than a prayer of success.
Now, with her friends in the Women’s Murder Club, Lindsay must battle for her life on two fronts: in a trial rushing to a climax, and against an unknown adversary willing to do anything to hide the truth about the homicides-including kill again?
Then a prominent businessman is found murdered under bizarre circumstances, with another mysterious message left behind by the killer. Lindsay asks her friends Claire Washburn of the medical examiner’s office, Assistant D.A. Jill Bernhardt, and Chronicle reporter Cindy Thomas to help her figure out who is committing these murders-and why they are intent on killing someone every three days.
Even more terrifying, the killer has targeted one of the four friends who call themselves the Women’s Murder Club.
Which one will it be?
A brutal madman sprays bullets into a crowd of children leaving a San Francisco church. Miraculously-or was it intentionally?-only one person dies. Then an elderly black woman is hung. Police homicide inspector Lindsay Boxer senses a connection and together with medical examiner Claire, assistant D. A. Jill, and Chronicle reporter Cindy, finds a link that sends a chill through the entire nation. This killer’s motives are unspeakable.
In this “inventive” installment of the Women’s Murder Club, James Patterson proves once again why he is the #1 master of the murder mystery (Sunday Times).
In this “inventive” installment of the Women’s Murder Club, James Patterson proves once again why he is the #1 master of the murder mystery (Sunday Times).
But the usual procedures aren’t bringing them any closer to stopping the killings. So these women form a Women’s Murder Club to collaborate outside the box and pursue the case by sidestepping their bosses and giving each other a hand. The four women develop intense bonds as they pursue a killer whose crimes have stunned an entire city. Working together, they track down the most terrifying and unexpected killer they have ever encountered–before a shocking conclusion in which everything they knew turns out to be devastatingly wrong.
