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1st To Die
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1st To Die
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1st To Die
Audiobook8 hours

1st To Die

Written by James Patterson

Narrated by Suzanne Toren

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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Currently unavailable

Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

Imagine a killer who thinks, "What is the worst thing anyone has ever done?"--and then goes far beyond it. Now imagine four women --a police detective, an assistant DA, a reporter, and a medical examiner --who join forces as they sidestep their bosses to track down criminals. Known as the Women's Murder Club, they are pursuing a murderer whose twisted imagination has stunned an entire city. Their chief suspect is a socially prominent writer, but the men in charge won't touch him. On the trail of the most terrifying and unexpected killer ever, they discover a shocking surprise that turns everything about the case upside down.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateNov 1, 2005
ISBN9781594834400
Unavailable
1st To Die
Author

James Patterson

James Patterson is the CEO of J. Walter Thompson, an advertising agency in New York. He has written several successful fiction and nonfiction books, including The New York Times best seller The Day America Told the Truth.

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Reviews for 1st To Die

Rating: 3.664267470951157 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

1,945 ratings109 reviews

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I liked it well enough to go on to the second one.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I really enjoyed this book and the characters of the Women's Murder Club. I totally didn't see the end coming. I am glad I took the recommendation of one of my friends to read this series. I can't wait to read the next one.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The main character - a female detective struggling with emotional and serious health problems - hunts a serial killer focussing on couples on their wedding day.

    This book was a fast and entertaining read. I liked the style element of writing chapters from the pov of the killer, without giving too many clues. The ending was ok, although I would have preferred a little less surprise twisting of the plot.
    The characters are not very well developed and their behaviour and interaction is a little implausible from time to time. I disliked the way the author divided the book in too many short chapters.

    I added the second part of the series to my too read shelf - sometimes I like fast and entertaining crime stories in between other books and I read somewhere that the series is getting better because of a co-author
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Too melodramatic for my tastes.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Brides and Grooms are being murdered on their wedding day! What a horrible way for a book to begin - but I was caught as soon as Lindsay Boxer began investigating.Lindsay has a new partner and isn't too happy about Chris Raleigh and his PR roots. His polish is the opposite of her gritty, tough woman persona. And then the pesky reporter, Cindy Thomas gets in the way. She is trying to make a name for herself in order to move from the Metro section to crime. And she has a way of figuring out what is going on.So, Lindsay takes a chance. She invites Cindy to accompany her to drinks with her biggest support network - Claire Washburn, the coroner. And that is the beginning of the Women's Murder Club. Three ladies who are tough and smart and on top of their careers and putting their heads together helps the investigation.That would be enough for the club - but they need legal help. Bring in the assistant District Attorney, Jill Bernhardt. And the club is complete.The club is only one side of the story though.This story is also told in first person by the killer - which is creepy! And as you find in all crime shows and novels - there are missteps on who this suspect is. All eyes focus on the author of a book about bride and groom crimes. Is it really him though??Then there is a final confrontation between Lindsay and the killer.There is also a sad love story and a bunch of female bonding.This was the perfect book to read on the beach! Quick page turner without having to put tons of energy into figuring out the story. I loved it!!Costa Rica book #3
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    To be honest, I'm trying to decide whether I want this guy in my collection at all. Based on just this book, he'd have to go. Some of this may be style but the chapters are exceedingly short, to the point of being snippets, not true scenes. After about twenty of these, the book annoyed me more than enticed me. Early chapters had a flipping point of view that also added to the distraction. The most sympathetic characters from the entire book, for me, were the dead ones. I'd probably have preferred the reporter be the primary point of view, instead of the detective. She seemed more fascinating. However, she didn't have the pulse of the investigation without the inspector prompting her.Early in the book, we were given a few chapters from the killer's point of view. Then these just disappear. Worse, when they come to the actual killer, the answer comes from out of left field, with very little supporting evidence to back it up. Not even the epilogue put everything in the right place. I realize this is the first book of the series, and a lot of this is establishing the characters, but dang. He's stretching things out without actual investigation happening. The cops are doing more command and talk among themselves than they are pounding the beat finding answers. Some things that should be stretched were written as one sentence, whereas things that should be a couple sentences rated... a full chapter. The author gave the main character a disease that is, in the end, fatal. By the hints in the prologue, she survives a while, but it's not an intelligent writing item for the primary point of view character. Not really a smart fatal flaw when looking at an extended series. Honestly, not smart writing at all... since it could potentially kill the character HOW is this guy such a big deal writer?I have more of his, but he goes to the back of the shelf until I get through some other stuff. And he may prove to be high on the weeding list when time to be rid of things.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The author grabs and holds the readers attention from beginning to end. A serial killer's grewsome activities bring together a group of women who view the case from different angles. By joing their thoughts they solve the case and form the Women's Murder club.Patterson will keep you guessing as to who the killer is and how the murders are connected.I would highly recommend this book.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I have been trying to read this for years and I a glad I was finally able to do it. Such a gripping mystery that I couldn't stop reading.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Imagine living in San Francisco knowing someone walks around killing newlyweds. 4 women share the same desire, to kill this man. Lindsay BBoxer; who is a homicide detective for the San Francisco Police Department, Claire Washburn; who is a crime desk reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle , Jill Bernhardt; who is the Chief Medical Examiner for San Francisco, and Cindy Tomas; a reporter who just started working the crime desk of the San Francisco Chronicle, all want to kill this man to put people out of their misery. Although they all work in places that have to do with solving murder mysteries they are not getting any closer to solving the towns problems. The theme of this book would probably be people tend to do things that they should not do. I would recommend this book to people who like to read murder mysteries.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I had hopes for this book. I thought the idea sounded right up my alley. It had a lot of potential. Four powerful women in traditionally male professions-- a detective, a medical examiner, a reporter, and a prosecutor-- forming a friendship/support group/crime solving network in San Francisco. Four female protagonists! Be still my heart!In practice, this was an awfully weak example of writing. I initially wondered if it was just that James Patterson didn't write female characters very well, but he had a female coauthor for this one, so there shouldn't have been any excuse for it. Plus, it's not like he's never written female characters before. He has. Plenty.This book opens with the main character about to commit suicide, and then backtracks to lead you to that point-- a point which is never actually addressed. It's literally just glossed over briefly as a side-note at the very end of the book. After that flash-forward scene, she gets a diagnosis for a fatal blood disease, which she went to the doctor for because she'd been feeling extremely weak and exhausted every day by afternoon. That could have been really interesting, if they had ever mentioned it anywhere else in the book ever. But no, not once in the course of solving the case does she ever feel tired or weak at any time. It would have been so easy to slip in! She spends lots of time working on this case, at all hours, missing sleep, running herself down. She should have been exhausted! It would have been so easy to mention! But they didn't do it. They would occasionally reference the illness, but always as some abstract, incidental thing. Occasionally she would fear for her own mortality, but she never seemed to suffer from any real symptoms except for a single, very brief incident at the very end.Also, there was some seriously phoned in character development in this book. The characters would just say things like "I don't trust men because of my failed marriage" or "I always have to win because my parents never thought I was good enough." Those are the kinds of things you might write on a character's bio outline, but in the actual book, you have to expand on them and show them, not just say them once and call it a day. Even if someone is self-aware enough to recognize that they have a problem and is self-reflective enough to find the roots of that problem, it's not something you just say, definitively, to whoever. That's not how people talk or act, James Patterson!Also-- and this is a weird, minor point-- they're in the city of San Francisco in the modern day, and all of the dozens of main and side characters are straight? Maybe it's silly, but that kind of bothered me as I was reading. I kept waiting for some guy to say "my ex-boyfriend" or some woman to say "my wife" or whatever. Just a casual mention. Or even-- gasp-- one of the four main characters! Again, it just would have been so easy to do. Visibility in a mainstream book like that would be a great thing. But they didn't do it. Fine. Whatever. It's not my book.Another minor nitpick: the chapters were stupidly short. The print version of the book probably has more between-chapter blank space than it does actual text. I like short chapters in mysteries, but there's a point where it gets ridiculous.Have I mentioned the plot yet? Do I need to? Does it matter? The plot was generally fine. I do wonder if it was written in unconnected chunks, though, because parts of it didn't seem to line up very well. Knowing James Patterson, I tried to call the twist from pretty early on, and I did end up guessing right. But there wasn't really any foreshadowing or buildup or motive of any kind that would have suggested who it was. I was just going off of what would be a typical James Patterson twist-- a side character who was mostly nonthreatening, but related enough to the case to be an outside possibility. Although I do seriously doubt that a woman described like her could have disguised herself to be indistinguishable from a man described like him. Honestly, now.I was surprised at who the "first to die" was, I'll at least give them that. I even kind of liked it. It's not the person I would have expected. It's not the kind of person who usually dies in these stories. So there's one point to you, James Patterson. Don't let it go to your head.You know, I've got a lot of complaints here, but I do have to give it this much credit: I did finish the book. After the second disc ended (I was listening to the audiobook), I briefly considered just giving up on it. But in the end, I wanted to see where it went. Granted, it went nowhere, basically. I had been hoping it would get better as it went, and that the friendship between the women would play more of a role. I thought Lindsay's ties to Cindy and Claire both had a lot of potential. (Jill wasn't really in the book enough to do much, but maybe she is in the sequels.) I just wanted to see more of them interacting. You know, like the series name implies.This review is now embarrassingly long. I guess I was just disappointed. I hate unfulfilled potential. And I've read at least two other James Patterson books that were actually pretty good. They at least had better character development and writing than this. I guess I wish that this series had been written by a different (better) writer, if that makes sense. Oh well. You can't always get what you want.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Wow this is a whopper of a thriller!!!! I think this is one of Patterson's very best. It has every element that a suspense/thriller reader would want. The characters are superb. Loved this book highly recommend to thriller fans.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Good start to the "Women's Murder Club" series.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    All you need to is read the first thirteen pages, then flip to the last thirteen pages and you will have everything you need to know about this story .
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A deliberately misleading mystery (which I do find annoying), a predictable ending (also a bit annoying), but I would still read the next in the series. I like that the Women's Murder Club itself wasn't super self-congratulatory. They argued, disagreed, and stood their ground. The story got a little complicated with all of the various points of view, and I'm not seeing the point of integrating in the medical problem faced by one of the main characters--it seems there was enough to the story without adding that into the mix.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    An easy and interesting light read. A little over the top and lacking realism in places, but enjoyable nonetheless.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Patterson's Women's Murder Club books bother me. I respect each of the members, each brings strength and friendship to the table and has their own career and home life. But calling them the Women's Murder Club sounds demeaning, as if this little group of ladies pull off a surprising, lucky break to solve the case. Each woman is a career professional good at her job. Their combined skills help solve crimes . The stories are full and interesting. I wonder why Patterson or his publisher felt they needed a little taste of quilting bee imagery to them. It takes away from the strength of the books.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Read for Fun!Challenges: Mystery/Thriller, Read for Fun, AudiobookOverall Rating: 4.25Mystery Rating: 4.50Character Rating: 4.00Audio Rating: 4.00First Thought when Finished: Very strong ending there Mr. Patterson! I really loved those twists and turns.What I Loved: I love James Patterson Mysteries and this one did not disappoint. He manages to create scenarios that seem very real and pretty frightening if you think about it hard enough. In this particular case, I loved that I had figured part of it out but not the complete story! It is fun to be blindsided by a fact.What I Liked: I really liked all 4 gals in the Women's Murder Club though we really only got to know 2 of them pretty well. I am pretty sure as the series plays out we will learn more about each of them.Audio Thoughts: I looked ahead and noticed that he doesn't have the same people reading the books (Books 1 and 2 are done by different narrators and then in book 3 he settles on a person). I thought Suzanne Toren did a pretty good job with pacing and emotion. I would listen to a book she narrated again.Final Thoughts: If you like mysteries, I think you would like this book!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is a certified page turner. It's my first James Patterson book and all I could say is that I'll definitely read more of Patterson's. The book was perfectly written in a simple way where you could easily relate to the main lead. It includes lots of twists, actually the book contains a twist up to the last dot.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Ok, the latest book I read was a crime/murder mystery book by James Patterson. I do not usually read that kind of book but decided to pick it up to see why people really enjoy reading his books. I did read and enjoyed a book called Zodiac a very long time ago but really it was much different than this novel and have not read any others so I thought I'd give it a try. This book was about a homicide detective in San Francisco. I don't want to give away too much in case somebody is going to read it but I will say that while reading this book it reminded me of why I don't tend to get into them. There is a lot of bad language, heinous sexual content and murders of course. Being my first Patterson book it made me wonder if I'd ever read another one. I guess it was well written in describing the characters and had ups and down, another character with personal issues, a love interest, and four bright characters that teamed up to be the Women's Murder Club-a group of women that bring together their own specialized skills to work on a homicide case. I thought the combination of those four disciplines was a brilliant idea for various reasons. On a 5 point scale I'd give it a 3, maybe a 3.5. It wasn't the best and wasnt the worst either. I'm not disappointed that I read it and maybe I'll get another Patterson book to see if he gets any better. I'd love to read what any of you thought about it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    First To Die is a book about a detecive after a killer who kills newlyweds. Along the way she becomes close with three women and they form a club to try to solve the murders "outside" the system. A great first book for the series.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I listened to the audio book and really didn't like the narrator. I felt she talked too slowly and didn't change voices to indicate different people. Because of this, I never really got into the story or cared for the main characters. Not sure why Patterson introduced the illness for the main character either, seemed like a unnecessary bit of distraction that didn't really fit into anything. Same thing for the romance part, which seemed contrived. Worst of all, I found there to be no plot twists at all. I was able to determine who did it very early on, although I was skeptical that I was correct until the very end.I'm going to try the next in the series with the hope that it's better.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I thought this book was very entertaining. I kept wanting to read more especially close to the climax. The mystery of the killer, and who it ends up being made this book a very good read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Very enjoyable brain candy if you like police/mystery stories. The first book in the series, 1st to Die introduces readers to Lindsay Boxer (police officer), Claire Washburn (medical examiner), Cindy Thomas (reporter), and Jill Berndhart (assistant district attorney), as well as Lindsay's lovable Sweet Martha (the Border Collie), Lindsay's former partner Warren Jacobi and other characters that reappear throughout the series. They key to the success of this series are the likable characters - their personalities, idiosyncrasies, interactions and patter. Although, in typical Patterson style, there are always twists to the 'whodunnit' portion of the novel, the plot seems always to be a vehicle for spending time with these 'people' in the beautiful San Francisco area. These novels are unlikely to leave your mouth agape, to amaze you or to change the way you view your world, but an hour or two with one is like a conversation and coffee with a friend.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    James Patterson is one of my favorite authors. He is very good at writing unexpected endings, there are always tons of plot twists in this novels and this book had these traits. The thing that has always bugged me about his writing is the short chapters. I find it anonoying and it breaks the plot up too much - plus it is a waste of paper. I liked the story, I thought it was well written. I really enjoyed the characters. They are all strong, independant woman, with their careers being the main focus of their lives. I would have liked to see a little more detail into the personal lives of Claire, Cindy and Jill. What they did away from their jobs. Because this book is a series, perhaps the characters will be more the focus in the books to follow. I was not impressed with Chris's fate, but I think it was necessary considering what was revealed in the epilogue. When the killer was revealed, Lindsay had to be alone for that scene to play out right. The best part of this book - in my opinion - the ending. It was a big surprise and there is no way you can not read the next book in the series, 2nd Chance
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Lyndsay Boxer, a homicide inspector is on the hunt for a serial killer, one who is killing brides and grooms. She teams up with a group of female friends to discuss the case on the side to see if they can come up with ideas for solving the murders. Her 'club' include her best friend Claire, a medical examiner, Jill, an assistant D.A., and Cindy, a news reporter. Together they discover bits of evidence to help them solve the murders, only to find out that they had the wrong 'man'. They think it is a famous writer who had written a story about killing brides and grooms, but Lindsay begins to doubt that it is him. Lindsay has other things going on in her life that complicate matters. She has just found out that she has a rare disease called Negli's and she has just fallen in love with her partner, Chris. This is a great story all the way to the last page!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    About The Murder Club; a man is a murder suspect but his wife is the killer; a cops boyfriend dies.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    this is a really good book
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I recently joined a book club, and the James Patterson "1st to Die" book was the first book that the club decided to read. I have never read any of James Patterson's books so it was fun to try out a new author. I like the style that the book was written in. The story was well written and easy to read. It was also broken into small chapters (maybe 3-5 pages each chapter) which made it easy to pick up and read whenever I had a few moments.This book is the first in his Women's Murder Club series. You are introduced to 4 main characters which I assume will be in each of the proceeding books in the series. I always love a good who-dunnit book, and this reminded me of Sue Grafton's popular series. The book follows a woman detective along her investigations of the Bride & Groom killer.I had many guesses at who it was while I was reading, and in the end the culprit was one of my hunches. I did enjoy reading this book, and I look forward to the next one in the series.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The story goes at a great pace and flows really well. The characters are ok, but I think Patterson pulls it off. When I sit down to read, time seems to flow fast and it's easy and exciting to get into the story. Four and a half out of five.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I Loved this book. Once I started this book it was hard to put down. I am now a fan of James Patterson.