1st to Die: Book Review

Today, we will be reviewing 1st to Die by James Patterson, a mystery thriller novel. Keep reading to find out if you should read this novel or avoid it at all costs!

1st to Die Summary

David and Melanie Brandt have just gotten married and are in their hotel room at the Grand Hyatt. They hear a knock on the door and a man yelling “champagne.” David gets up to open it and is stabbed to death by Phillip Campbell, who then violently kills Melanie next. 

Inspector Lindsay Boxer finds out that she has a rare and deadly blood disease and unless she treats it, she will die. Right then, she gets a call and heads to the Grand Hyatt. At the hotel, Lindsay meets Cindy Thomas, a news reporter who sneaks up to the suite to find out more about the story before she is kicked out. 

Lindsay is assigned a partner to the case and has to learn to work with him to solve this case. But as they make progress, Campbell strikes again and another couple who was recently married is killed. Can Lindsay and her newly formed group solve the murders and bring justice to the victims and stop Campbell before he strikes again?

Commentary

1st to Die was released in 2001 and is the first novel in the Women’s Murder Club series. The novel is not for the faint of heart and is disturbing at times. If I knew that going into the novel (which I chose at random), I would not have picked it.

For a thriller novel, this novel starts off slow and focuses a bit too much on the romance side. Unfortunately, James Patterson is not good at writing romance scenes and it made me cringe at reading some of those scenes. 

The crime itself is disturbing and the structure of the novel makes it hard to realize what the mystery is. But once Patterson does introduce the plot twists, It feels like he cheats to make sure that you don’t guess the murderer correctly until the last page.

Only after reading this novel, will you be able to put all the pieces together because there are too many plot twists. But as a reader, it is not an enjoyable experience. This was my first and maybe my last Patterson novel.

Conclusion

I was searching for a good thriller to read and ended up choosing this novel. There are some elements that make this worth reading but they aren’t enough. The novel will test your limits and offers little else to keep you hooked. I wouldn’t recommend this novel to anyone and I hope other Patterson novels are a lot better structured than this. Happy reading!

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