Women's Murder Club (abridged)

The electrifying first novel in James Patterson's Women's Murder Club series.

As the only woman homicide inspector in San Francisco, Lindsay Boxer has to be tough. But nothing has prepared her for the honeymoon murders.

A brutal maniac begins a killing spree - slaughtering newlywed couples - and Lindsay takes on the case. She is sickened by the deaths, but her determination to bring the murderer to justice is threatened by personal tragedy.

Master of suspense, James Patterson, takes us into a terrifying underworld with this second thriller in his dazzling Women's Murder Club series. When a little girl is shot on the steps of a San Francisco church, Detective Lindsay Boxer knows it's time to reconvene the Women's Murder Club. Working with reporter Cindy Thomas, assistant DA Jill Bernhardt, and medical examiner Claire Washburn, Lindsay tracks a mystifying killer who soon turns his pursuers into his victims.

Michael Campion was a people's hero, a popular governor's son who publicly battled against a rare and debilitating heart illness. When he vanished without a trace one evening, his disappearance and the search to find him, dead or alive, hit the headlines daily. But the trail went cold very quickly. Now with a new lead, Detective Lindsay Boxer is determined to find out what happened to San Francisco's Golden Boy.

Behind the closed doors of San Fransisco's grandest mansions, beautiful people party the nights away in a heady mix of money, drugs, drink and sex. But the rich and famous aren't the only ones with the keys to these most exclusive of addresses, someone else is intent on crashing the party. A rock star, a fashion designer, a software tycoon and a millionaire heiress. Each is glamourous, stunningly attractive and incredibly rich, but their similarities don't end there, they have something else in common too. They are all dead.

A disturbed killer targets San Francisco’s most innocent and vulnerable… Sarah Wells is a normal, suburban woman. She has a husband, a job as an English teacher at the local high-school, but she also has a secret … she is an expert jewel thief. While her rich victims throw parties, Sarah breaks into their homes and steals from right under their very noses. One night however, things go badly wrong and Casey Dowling, the wife of famous actor Marcus Dowling, is killed.

Detective Lindsay Boxer has finally married her long-time boyfriend Joe. But she doesn’t even have time for a honeymoon before returning to work and a traumatic case. A fifteen-year-old girl is found lying unconscious in the street, naked but for a cheap plastic raincoat, and haemorrhaging badly after having given birth within the last 36 hours. But the baby is nowhere to be found.Meanwhile Yuki Castellano is trying a case against a woman accused of killing her husband.

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. Lindsay is called next to the most bizarre crime scene she's ever witnessed: two bodiless heads elaborately displayed in the garden of a world-famous actor.

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 it's real. Lindsay doesn't believe him, but then a shooting is called in - and it fits the professor's description to the last detail.

When two dead bodies are found inside a wrecked car on the Golden Gate Bridge, Detective Lindsay Boxer doubts that it will be anything as simple as a traffic accident. The scene is more gruesome than anything she has seen before. It definitely wasn’t the crash that killed these people. While Lindsay starts to piece this case together, she gets a call she wasn’t expecting. Sightings of her ex-colleague-turned-ruthless-killer Mackie Morales have been reported.

Detective Lindsay Boxer and her three best friends are back and recovering from the events that pushed them all to the edge. After her near-death experience, Yuki is seeing her life from a new perspective and is considering a change in her law career. San Francisco Chronicle reporter Cindy has healed from her gunshot wound and has published a book on the infamous serial killers she helped bring down. Lindsay is just happy that the gang is all still in one piece.