"Two bodies arrived at the morgue—one was still breathing."
That's a hell of a hook. I'll give Patterson that. I was shelving returns at the library on a slow Thursday afternoon, earbuds in, and that opening line made me stop mid-Dewey Decimal. For about thirty seconds, I thought this BookShot might actually deliver something worth the two and a half hours.
It didn't. But let's talk about why.
The Promise of a Body That Breathes
The premise is solid Women's Murder Club territory: a woman's lover gets shot in a hotel room, she's left for dead but survives, and Lindsay Boxer and the crew have to untangle whether this is a jealous husband situation or something darker. At 2 hours and 30 minutes, this is less a novel and more of a long episode—Patterson's BookShots line is designed to be consumed like snack food. And look, I get the appeal. Sometimes you want a full seven-course horror meal. Sometimes you want gas station jerky. I'm not above gas station jerky.
But here's the thing about short-form mystery: every single beat has to land. There's no room for filler, no space to meander. And Patterson and Paetro know how to structure a quick hit—the pacing clips along, the chapter breaks are absurdly short (some are barely two pages worth of audio), and the central mystery has enough turns to keep you engaged through a lunch break. It's competent. It's efficient. It's also completely disposable. Midnight Line gave me that same efficient-but-hollow feeling—Reacher moves through it like a machine, and I respected the craft while feeling nothing. I finished it and couldn't tell you a single character detail that wasn't directly plot-relevant. The Women's Murder Club members show up, do their thing, and leave. If you've never read the series, you won't understand why these women matter to each other. If you have, you'll notice how thin they feel here—like photocopies of photocopies.
Kate Russell and the Case of the Missing Voices
Okay. I need to talk about the narration, and I'm going to be blunt because the narrator commits—or doesn't commit—and that's the whole game.
Kate Russell does not commit.
Her reading is clear. Her pacing is consistent. And every single character sounds exactly the same. Lindsay Boxer, Claire Washburn, Cindy Thomas, the male suspects, the husband—all filtered through the same flat, mid-register delivery. There's hardly a difference between the men's and women's voices, which in a mystery where you need to track multiple suspects and multiple club members across rapid-fire dialogue scenes? That's a problem. I had to rewind twice in one exchange because I genuinely couldn't tell who was speaking.
For context: January LaVoy narrates the main Women's Murder Club novels, and she's built distinct vocal identities for each of these women over multiple books. Boxer has an edge. Claire has warmth. Cindy has that eager energy. LaVoy understands that these are four different women with four different relationships to violence and justice, and she performs accordingly. Russell reads them all like the same person having a conversation with herself in a waiting room.
I don't want to be cruel—some listeners appreciated the clarity and steadiness. And for a 2.5-hour listen, maybe you don't need theatrical range. But I do. If you scare easily, skip. If you don't, you need this—except this isn't horror, this is mystery, and what I actually need is a narrator who makes me care about who pulled the trigger. Russell made me care about finishing my shelving.
Who Gets the Most Out of This
If you're already deep into the Women's Murder Club series and want every scrap of content, this fills a gap between books 16 and 17. It's canonical, it's quick, and it won't waste your whole day. If you're brand new to the series, start literally anywhere else—this gives you nothing to hold onto.
And if you're an audiobook-first person like me, who believes narration is half the experience? Honestly, read this one with your eyes. Or wait and hope they re-record it with LaVoy. The story is fine airport-thriller material—the audio version just doesn't earn its format. Blue Cross is the counterexample I keep returning to—a tight procedural where the audio format actually amplifies the tension instead of flattening it.
Shirley Jackson Would've Made That Hotel Room Terrifying
I kept thinking about what this could've been. A woman shot in a hotel room, left for dead, waking up in a morgue. That's a horror premise wearing a mystery costume. But Patterson plays it straight—procedural, efficient, no atmosphere. The hotel room is just a hotel room. The morgue is just a morgue. There's no dread, no lingering unease, just plot mechanics clicking into place like a well-oiled but deeply boring machine.
Shirley (my cat) was unimpressed. For once, I agreed with her.
This is fast food fiction with a flat narrator. You'll consume it, you won't remember it, and you'll move on. Sometimes that's fine. But don't spend a credit on it.
