Confessions of a Murder Suspect by James Patterson

Everyone knows James Patterson for Alex Cross, Women's Murder Club series, and Michael Bennett.  It was only a matter of time before he came out with a new character.  Meet the Angel family.  A family obsessed with perfection in their children, downplaying their emotions, and maintaining the perfect image.

The Angel kids wake up one morning to find their parents murdered.  The police are called to investigate, and immediately the children are suspects.  The family lives in the famous Dakota building, and security is very tight.  The idea that the children were in the apartment and didn't hear the gruesome murder is already suspicious, but throw on the fact that the children were taught to repress their emotions and they look incredibly guilty.  None of the children seem sad, and they're all matter of fact about the situation.  Tandy, the daughter, is the main character in the book and tells us about her siblings and other people that had ties with their family.  We learn about the mother's job as a hedge fund manager and a pending lawsuit, the father's job running a large pharma company, and how all of that plays into their family life.

Alex Cross, with the WMC coming in a close second, is still my favorite of Patterson's characters.  Probably because most of those books seem to be written by just Patterson, and I think meshing two styles in a book is hard.  I wasn't too impressed with this book when I was reading it, but there was just enough to keep me going.  The ending was very sudden, and completely unexpected!  As someone who often guesses the ending to murder mysteries, I love it when the author can surprise me.  So that moved the book up on my list.

It wasn't until I was reading the setup for the second book in the series that I began to understand.  Like the first book in most series, it's done to set up the characters.  The story line is there, and it's good, but since the story line normally ends in that book the author knows the characters are what bring you back.  In looking at the first book in THAT light, I like it a lot more.  The characters are very interesting, ranging from a young boy that's great at art to the oldest brother who is a Heisman trophy winner and professional athlete.  All with issues stemming from their parents.  Those characters I will enjoy reading about.  And hopefully, since the character set ups are done, the next story line is much more interesting.

<3, jacq