coolreads# Guilty Wives @definitelybooks

Guilty Wives
Authors: James Patterson and David Ellis
Publisher: Arrow Books
ISBN: 9780099550181

An eclectic group of four successful female friends embark on what is supposed to be an exotic, once-in-a-lifetime Monte Carlo vacation only to find themselves in prison, labelled as terrorists and on trial for murder. This enticing scenario is the foundation for Guilty Wives, the latest page-turning thriller from James Patterson and David Ellis.

Locked in a French prison, Georgetown literature professor Abbie Elliot recalls the glamorous prologue to her murder conviction. Former US Olympic skier Serena Schofield footed the bills for Abbie, British diva Winnie Brookes and South African beauty Bryah Gordon as they prepared for an unforgettable weekend of drinking, eating and sexual adventures.

Abbie doesn’t know that Devo, the man Winnie hooks up with, has actually been her lover for a year, or that he’s the President of France. Nor does she know that her husband Jeffrey, along with the husbands of Serena, Bryah and Winnie, is watching the four buddies as they sashay around Monte Carlo.

When someone shoots Devo and the race car driver who turns out to be his bodyguard, the police arrest the four friends, but it’s clear that one of the four husbands has framed them for the murder. There follows a trial during which Abbie keeps getting reminded that they’re not in an American courtroom, a prison stint marked by threats, bullying and worse, and a daring escape that leads to a high-fatality climax.

Patterson and Ellis make the pages fly without creating a single memorable character or asking the readers to take any of their  glossy or gritty menace seriously.

This is a whodunit thriller. Even though all of those questions are supposedly answered within the first few chapters of this fast-paced, edge-of-your-seat novel, readers will keep reading from the first page to the last without a break.

Although reading Guilty Wives does require some suspension of disbelief, however, the narrative is well-paced and moves quickly, and by tale’s end, all is explained and makes sense. It is obvious to everyone but the French judicial system that the women are being set up, and the readers even get a hint near the beginning as to who is really responsible. But it is the how and why that maintains the mystery.

The appeal of this crime thriller is its cinematic narrative - the story unfolds like a thriller movie that leaves you emotionally drained at the end. It is also a cautionary tale that warns against revenge taken hastily in any form and the betrayal of marital trust.