"Potboiler" is a descriptive and occasionally derogatory term in literary circles. It normally applies to books that don't begin with the words "Call me Ishmael," books that are short on memorable prose and long on explosions, karate, and/or heaving bosoms. However, writing a potboiler isn't easy; things have to keep moving, there has to be something happening every third page or so.

2ND CHANCE is a potboiler. It's easy to read; James Patterson tends to write in short sentences encapsulated in short chapters. Point of view jumps around quite a bit, from person to person and even from first person to third person. The villain is more interesting than the good guys and, as is often the case in novels such as these, has a Jason-like ability to keep coming back, despite apparently having been dispatched. And as far as keeping things moving along...well, if you can't finish 2ND CHANCE in a long afternoon, you need to simplify your life. Yep, 2ND CHANCE is potboiler. It is, by amazing coincidence, the second in a projected series of books by Patterson featuring the Women's Murder Club, created in 1ST TO DIE. The Women's Murder Club, consisting of Lt. Lindsay Boxer of the San Francisco Police Department, reporter Cindy Thomas, assistant D. A. Jill Bernhardt, and medical examiner Claire Washburn, is an informal group that solves the grisly crimes to which San Francisco has lent itself since its creation. The action tends to revolve around Boxer; Boxer handles most of the first person narration, with some occasional third party omnipresent chapters thrown in just to keep things cooking.

If you read 1ST TO DIE and didn't care for it, take a look at 2ND CHANCE. It is a much better book. Patterson (ably assisted by Andrew Gross) handles the pacing much better this time around. The plot is better, the ending(s) even a bit more plausible. The case this time concerns a series of random murders, which initially appear to be "hate crimes" but which instead have a far more sinister link to them. Boxer, newly minted as a Homicide lieutenant is under intense pressure to solve the murders at once before the community explodes. The common thread running through the murders, however, is spun out of an event in the distant past, and Boxer gradually discovers that the murders have a connection to elements of her own past --- elements that she thought she had put out of her mind. The investigation progresses as the members of the Women's Murder Club bring their respective talents and aptitudes to bear on the task of identifying the murderer. When the murderer is ultimately identified, however, matters do not end there. There is, as one principal announces toward the conclusion of 2ND CHANCE, "One more surprise."

Although it is probably a little too early to tell, Patterson is doing a gradual, unhurried job of fleshing out each of his protagonists. This is one series that will not be static; there will be events, good and bad, which will effect the lives of each of the members of the Club. The result is that one never really is sure of what is going to happen from page to page. I would not put it past Patterson to even change the membership of the Club --- by trauma or otherwise --- as time goes on.

Patterson, with an unnamed collaborator, is reportedly at work on the third book in this series. Given the quality of 2ND CHANCE, there is half a chance that the Women's Murder Club series may surpass Patterson's Alex Cross novels in popularity. There is certainly room on the bookshelves, however, for both.

   --- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub


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