It’s time to bid goodbye to Thriller February, folks. It’s been a wild and – dare I say it – thrilling ride full of murder, betrayal and the occasional disappointment.

But, we’re going out with a bang!

Detective Lindsay Boxer has everything she could possibly want. Her marriage and baby daughter are perfect, and life in Homicide in the San Francisco Police Department is going well. But all that could change in an instant.

Lindsay is called to a crime scene at the Four Seasons Hotel. There is a dead man in one of the rooms, shot at close range. The man checked in under a false name with no ID on him, so the first puzzle will be finding out who he is.

In the room next door are a dead young man and woman, also shot. They are surrounded by high-tech surveillance equipment. Could they have been spying on the man now dead in the room next to them?

And in the utilities cupboard down the hall is the dead body of a house maid. The murders are all clearly linked and professionally executed. But what is the motive behind it all? Lindsay will need to risk everything she has to find out.

“COUNTRY FIRST. THIS IS WHAT I DO.”

This was one of the many Patterson novels I picked up during my work placement at Penguin and after the slightly disappointing Cradle and All, I was a little worried about the stack of free Patterson thrillers I’d taken home. Thank the heavens, 15th Affair was fantastic and restored my faith in my choices.

It was everything I’d want out of a detective thriller. An increasing body count, spies, car chases, shootouts and betrayal. Even though the culprit was fairly easy to work out, I very much enjoyed following Lindsay’s journey to solve the case which is riddled with drama after finding out that her missing husband Joe may be involved in some way.

It’s an intriguing and quick read that’s packed full of plot twists and badass crime-fighting action. I’ve not read any of the other books in the Women’s Murder Club series so perhaps jumping in at the fifteenth instalment was a bit of a risk, but I actually found myself unable to put it down. I just might have to go back and read the other fourteen novels in the series when I have the time!

However, I will say that Patterson has packed a lot into this book. While it does make for a very exciting read, if you’re going to be playing Sherlock while reading alone, then you’ll need to pay close attention to the details in order to keep up with who’s who and what’s going on. The ending is very much predictable, but I did love the moment when Lindsay and culprit have a talk and she unravels how the whole crime happened.

That being said, the epilogue felt a little long for my liking and, at times, unnecessary. Especially that pointless cliffhanger, dear god! I get that it’s perhaps setting up the next instalment, but I would’ve been more content if it had ended with the fate of the culprit instead. As much as I enjoyed Lindsay and Joe’s conflict and marriage drama during the height of the novel’s action, I found the ending where she debates letting him in the house or not a bit of a dull ending.

RATING
★★★★