The 24th Hour: Is This The End? (A Women's Murder Club Thriller, 24)

“This 24th in the series will do for a quickly moving airport or travel read, but only the ‘mental disorder as disability’ premise is memorable . . . somebody missed how to use the talking points of Crime Fiction 101 along the way.”

This 24th title in the Women’s Murder Club series opens with a celebration by four close friends and professional colleagues: San Francisco Police Department sergeant Lindsay Boxer, medical examiner Claire Washburn, assistant district attorney Yuki Castellano, and crime writer Cindy Thomas. It’s supposed to be a frivolous and delicious girls’ night out, with both a birthday and an engagement to mark. But when a scream from the restaurant’s upper level pulls the Lindsay into a crime scene, her friends all become witnesses to what looks like an open-and-shut case of sexual assault.

Bouncing through very short chapters with swiftly shifting points of view, Patterson and Paetro (who’ve been co-writing this series since its fourth title) press the action into a challenging case: Yuki will have to convince a jury that the accused assailant was aware of her client’s severe disability, a mental disorder that eliminated any chance of informed consent to sex. That would be tough on its own—but the client has a dissociative identity disorder, a rephrasing of the old-fashioned term “multiple personality.” Which of her personalities experienced the assault? All of them? And which one might have set up the situation and thus bears some responsibility?

It's an intriguing premise, and the strengths of The 24th Hour are almost entirely in the courtroom scenes. With Patterson’s clever touches that elevate suspense, the book can be a compelling page turner.

Sadly, it’s hard to bear with the less believable aspects of the plot: After all, if Yuki acts as a witness in court, how can she also be the prosecutor? Why are the investigative procedures so far off what’s expected? Where is the “discovery” process in this case, especially when a pertinent document is located? And how can today’s crime fiction ignore a collection of trophies from assault victims, in pursuing what motivates the criminal?

Along with plot points that get dropped (what on earth happened to Arthur?), it’s annoying in this era to have female protagonists whose case gets its significant breaks by accident, instead of through investigator know-how and insight. In that sense, this novel comes close in plot style to some early Stephanie Plum novels but lacks the sharp Janet Evanovich humor. The use of a mental disorder as critical to the case suggests Patricia Cornwall, except there’s little expertise brought in. And the California court setting could parallel books by John Lescroart, if only the characters placed their lives or integrity into the risk balance.

In sum, this 24th in the series will do for a quickly moving airport or travel read, but only the “mental disorder as disability” premise is memorable—leading to a baffling conclusion that somebody missed how to use the talking points of Crime Fiction 101 along the way.