The Medical Examiner

The Medical Examiner is a short story in the Women's Murder Club series by prolific American author, James Patterson. It is published under the BookShots: stories at the speed of life banner and is co-written by Maxine Paetro. It starts out with Claire Washburn being surprised by a body in the morgue that is not actually dead. Lindsay Boxer is on vacation with Joe Molinari, so Richie Conklin investigates. But reporter Cindy Thomas, always after a good story, sniffs out some details of her own and gets into hot water.

At 125 pages, it's a quick read, with an intriguing (and somewhat convoluted) plot, but some of the execution is a little clumsy, as if bits of it are still in draft form, and the wooden dialogue in the prologue does the story no favours. There also seems to be quite a bit of padding with mundane detail that has no bearing on the story. Yuki Castellano and Lindsay are conspicuous by their absence, appearing for only fleeting glimpses, so it's really the Claire, Cindy and Richie show for this one. Perhaps essential reading for die-hard WMC fans, other readers can get it from the library.