The 19th Christmas

The 19th Christmas is the nineteenth book in James Patterson's Women's Murder Club series, co written with Maxine Paetro, who has been Patterson's regular collaborator on this franchise since the early entries. The series follows four San Francisco women whose professional lives put them in regular contact with the city's worst crimes. Lindsay Boxer, a homicide inspector. Cindy Thomas, a crime reporter. Claire Washburn, the chief medical examiner. And Yuki Castellano, a prosecutor. The four meet regularly to drink wine, share information, and unofficially compare notes on the cases that overlap their professional jurisdictions.

In this Christmas season entry, Lindsay catches a tip that a major heist is being planned in San Francisco for the holidays, masterminded by an elusive criminal known only as Loman. As Lindsay and the SFPD start digging, the case turns out to be larger and more dangerous than the original tip suggested, and the holiday backdrop becomes a setting for a manhunt that escalates through the final third of the book. Patterson and Paetro deliver the brisk pacing the series is known for, with short chapters and frequent point of view shifts.

The Women's Murder Club has remained one of Patterson's most consistent franchises in part because the four central characters anchor every book regardless of the specific case. Long time readers come back as much for the friendship between Lindsay, Cindy, Claire, and Yuki as they do for the procedural plotting. Their evolving lives, marriages, careers, and personal crises run as a continuing thread underneath each new mystery.

For longtime fans, The 19th Christmas delivers the holiday flavored entry the series occasionally produces. For new readers, the series can be picked up almost anywhere, but starting with 1st to Die or 2nd Chance gives the strongest sense of the four women and their dynamic.