because it kept me intrigued right to the end, and something that doesn’t happen often with me – I didn’t guess the murderer!

Lindsay Boxer, a San Francisco police lieutenant, is on trial for killing one youth and putting another one in a wheelchair. She and her partner, because they felt sorry for the two youth, who had run from them and had crashed their car, holstered their guns as they helped the young girl and her brother from the car, despite the fact that they were suspects in some strange murders in that part of town. Before the officers knew it, shots were being fired and Lindsay’s partner went down. Lindsay hit the ground and fired her gun. The girl was killed, and the boy ended in a wheelchair. Under normal circumstances there probably wouldn’t have been much of an investigation, however the youth were children of a rich family and Lindsay was to be made an example of – the big issue being that she and her partner hadn’t followed police procedure. She was put on leave until the trial was over.

Lindsay retreats to her sister’s house in a picturesque town – a quiet town where nothing much happens. However, she soon finds out that the town has had a number of unexplained murders and these murders bear a resemblance to an unsolved case from Lindsay’s rookie years.

Fighting on both ends – to preserve her reputation on the home-front, and to solve the murders in her sister’s town, Lindsay is caught up in a web of evil that she wasn’t counting on. “4th of July” is a definite must-read for all the mystery readers out there – once again, Patterson will not disappoint!