She Treads Softly: The Writer

Thursday, February 20, 2025

The Writer

The Writer by James Patterson and J. D. Barker
3/17/25; 400 pages
Little, Brown and Company

The Writer by James Patterson and J. D. Barker is a very highly recommended twisty procedural/thriller. Wow! This is an excellent, suspenseful, twisty roller coaster ride of a novel and it left me dizzy from the twists and turns.

NYPD Detective Declan Shaw is planning to jump in front of a subway train when he gets a call from his investigative partner, Jarod Cordova. He wants to know how fast Shaw can get to the Beresford building on Central Park West. A woman returned home to the tower apartment there and found her husband dead. She is asking for Shaw by name.

Once there Shaw sees bestselling true-crime writer Denise Morrow, covered in blood, sitting next to her dead husband. It seems a clear-cut case, but Denise has an alibi and it becomes even more complicated. Searching the apartment it is also discovered that she is writing a book casting doubt on a case that Shaw and Cordova worked on in 2018 that involved the murder of a fourteen-year-old girl in Central Park.

That's all you need to know - once you start reading you will be hooked almost from the start. There are chapters presented from Now and Then (2018) and also excerpts from police transcripts along the way.

The writing is absolutely exceptional, the pace is fast, and the plot is clever and intelligent. There are so many complications and layers of deception in this unpredictable procedural. What you can expect are several stunning revelations and absolutely jaw-dropping twists along the way in this truly addictive, un-put-downable novel.

As for the characters, you won't know who to trust or believe. The whole narrative is one shrewd complicated cat and mouse game where the roles keep changing and then another switch appears to shake it all up again. I'm not saying anything else but read this novel!

The Writer is a perfect choice for readers who love procedurals with plenty of twists. Thanks to Little, Brown and Company for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.