The Ninth Judgment: the Women’s Murder Club, by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro, A-minus, narrated by Carolyn McCormick, produced by Hachette Audio, downloaded from audible.com.

This is the ninth book in the Women’s Murder Club series. Actually this is one of the better ones. This series has gone up and down, but this one is a good entry. Sergeant Lindsay Boxer is involved in two cases. One involves a jewel thief cat burglar who enters the houses of the rich and famous while they are engaged in entertaining guests, gets into their bedrooms, and steals their jewelry, usually left in unlocked safes. Cindy, in a column about the case, called the cat burglar “Hello Kitty” and the name stuck. While the burglar was stealing jewels in one house, the couple came back into their bedroom. While the thief hid, the couple had a fight, then had sex, then went to sleep. As the thief was getting out of the window, a table was knocked over, which woke the couple up. The next morning, the wife is dead, and her husband, an actor idolized by many women, is heartbroken. Since the jewels are gone, the police at first believe that the cat burglar shot her while trying to get away, but there are inconsistencies in the actor-husband’s story and Lindsay is suspicious. The other case involves a serial murderer who is shooting women with babies in strollers. He kills both the mother and child in each instance. The whole town of San Francisco is terrified. No one knows who he is or why he is killing women with children, except that they have to guess that he hates women and children. Lindsay is very much involved in both cases, and the other women are also involved. An excellent action-packed book.