Product Description

Behind the closed doors of San Francisco'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. Just as the rich and famous are the talk of the town when they're alive, interest in them certainly doesn't die when they do, and Detective Lindsay Boxer is quickly assigned to the case. In stark contrast, few people seem as interested when a local hero, Bagman Jesus, is brutally murdered.Reporter Cindy Thomas soon becomes interested in his story: his work with the homeless of San Francisco was admirable. He was loved by so many - who would want to kill him? Could the down-and-out Samaritan have been hiding a dark secret? It isn't just Cindy who has questions that need answering, Lindsay fiercely depends on Claire's help to crack her case. Both seek guidance from their friends, but in doing so, they are forced to confront feelings they'd buried away. Things aren't so simple for Yuki either, as she falls quite literally head over heels in love; but the man of her dreams isn't quite who he seems. The Women's Murder Club need each other more than ever but with tensions running high will the friends be strong enough to stick together or will the strain tear them apart?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2403 in Books
• Published on: 2009-03-26
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 368 pages

From the Inside Flap
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.

Just as the rich and famous are the talk of the town when they’re alive, interest in them certainly doesn’t die when they do. In stark contrast, few people seem as interested when a local hero, Bagman Jesus, is brutally murdered. Reporter Cindy soon becomes interested in his story: his work with the homeless of San Fransisco was admirable. He was loved by so many – who would want to kill him? Could the down-and-out Samaritan have been hiding a dark secret?

And of course it isn’t just Lindsey who has questions to answer, she fiercely depends on Claire’s help to crack her case. Meanwhile, as Cindy tries to solve a mystery of her own, she seeks guidance from her friends, but in doing so, both Cindy and Lindsey are forced to confront feelings they’d buried away and Yuki falls quite literally head over heels in love but the man of her dreams isn’t quite who he seems.

The Women’s Murder Club need each other more than ever but with tensions running high will the friends be strong enough to stick together or will the strain tear them apart?

About the Author
James Patterson is one of the best-known and biggest-selling writers of all time. He is the author of some of the most popular series of the past decade: the Women's Murder Club, the Alex Cross novels and Maximum Ride, and he has written many other number one bestsellers including romance novels and stand-alone thrillers. He has won an Edgar award, the mystery world's highest honour. He lives in Florida with his wife and son.

Customer Reviews

A waste of time
When I got to the end of `8th Confession' I thought to myself - what was the point? From start to finish pretty much nothing happens - Lindsey Boxer and Richie Conklin, with the help of Claire, are on the case where rich figures from San Francisco are being murdered by snake bites while at the same time they are juggling another case which has been brought about by demanding Cindy, where a homeless man who is thought of as a saint in the area has been viciously killed. Yuki is also in the courtroom trying to convict a teenage rich girl who has bludgeoned her father to death and left her mother in an extremely bad state, whilst out of the courtroom she is falling in love with the man of her dreams. It sounds like there is a lot of stuff going on, but there isn't.

Both of Boxer and Conklin's case are wrapped up really easily and how they didn't spot who the killer was earlier is beyond me, as is Yuki's case which falls flat with a effortless conclusion halfway through, obviously just leading it to the love interest which actually could have happened without the whole court case anyway. None of the characters evolve at all, they just become more annoying than ever (especially Cindy and surprisingly Jacobi who I actually used to like in the previous books). Lindsey and Conkiln's forbidden love is equally as irritating and unnecessary as ever.

It's such a shame that this is so poor as after the appalling 6th Target, 7th Heaven bought the series back up to scratch, being possibly the best of them all, but this has again bought the series back down again as this is just a real waste of time. I'm not sure whether this is because of the high number of books that James Patterson has supposedly written each year (it's becoming about one a month recently) and it is affecting the quality as he is running out of ideas (as you'd expect) or what, but overall this book is just completely pointless and although it is an easy enough and fairly enjoyable read, it really wouldn't matter at all if you missed this one, even if you are a massive fan of the series. I'd buy Patterson's excellent Run For Your Life instead.

Disappointing.
The Woman's Murder Club series has had it's ups and downs. Different people will differ in opinions on which are the bad though. For me, 4th Of July was the worst but I've really enjoyed the past three books. I had been really looking forward to this one but it didn't live up to expectations. The plot about the 'saint' homeless man was dull and the rich and famous people being killed wasn't much better.

This book also finally sees Lindsay Boxer choosing between the men in her, boyfriend Joe and partner Richie Conklin. I'm not going to give away what happened though. It was something that needed to be resolved but I don't think the way it was done was really the best way. Or even a particularly good way. Not many of the personal relationships in this book follow the past few books very well at all.

The storyline with Yuki and her new man is good, with a surprising twist near the end which leaves lots of open threads for the next book. Claire is hardly seen at all. There are a few short scenes with her working with Lindsay, but when with the girls, she's just there, she doesn't say much and there isn't much shown between Lindsay and Claire which, with everything going on in Lindsay's personal life, doesn't make much sense. Claire has always been the person Lindsay goes too, but apparently not now. I've never really liked Cindy, she's annoyed me and is worse than ever in this book, and there is a lot of her too. Richie Conklin is another matter. His character seems to have switched from the nice guy he is, to someone totally different and willing to screw his partner over, again something that doesn't come close to fitting with previous books.

I fully admit to being obsessive about books and their characters and yes I realise that people change and everything. But the changes aren't done well here. There is no quality to this book. There are phrases used by the characters that they've never used in 7 books, and they don't come out well now. This the whole book feels, for lack of a better word, wrong. It seems more like a book that was written because it had to be rather than because they had a good idea for it. It feels kind of like it's too young for what it is. Even half the descriptions of the main characters are written with language not used before, and again, it doesn't fit.

I think what happened here was a result of quantity = quality. Mr. Patterson churns out books at a great rate and even with other writers involved, this must cost on quality, and that is exactly what happened here. Hopefully the next one will be better, but I won't be looking for it with any expectations.

Flawed but still entertaining...
Somewhat fractured

I have enjoyed the Women's Murder Club series and was ecstatic to receive a pre publication copy, however, I found 8th confession a bit of a let down. The plot follows two different paths. One is the seemingly connected murders of some high society types-why are they being killed? The other, the murder of a likeable old homeless man. For me the plot was not very substantial and somewhat fractured. The Women real did not work as a team on this one, Claire and Yuki are hardly mentioned with the story focusing on Cindy and Lindsay. Part of the fun of this series has been the way the girls work together as a team and that was missing in this one. That being said it is still an entertaining read suitable for a plane ride or a day at the beach. If you are a fan of Patterson like pacing I do recommend the adventure thriller "A Tourist in the Yucatan."