The Black Book by David Ellis and James Patterson is a great detective thriller taking place in Chicago. The Black Book is book 1 in the Billy Harney series. The thriller is about a brothel’s missing black book that catered to Chicago’s elite like the mayor. The book is filled with twists and double/triple crosses. The list of suspects is long with plenty of them having motive and opportunity. This was a reread for me and I couldn’t remember who the guilty party was, because there are so many suspects to choose from. We get two timelines in this book the present day and the weeks before. This way of storytelling works well and made me invested in the story right from the start. I had to know how things led up to crazy murder. The book is told from two different perspectives Billy and his sister Patty, who are both detectives. The pace for this book is rapid fast and easy to consume. The book is a little long for a James Patterson book at 418 pages but it is a fast read. The book was funnier than I remember, with a couple of laugh-out-loud moments. This book did have one heck of a sex scene that was kind of hot. I’ve read a decent amount of James Patterson thrillers (over 20) and The Black Book is in my top 5. The Black Book was published on March 27, 2017.

The facts are Billy Harney a police detective, his lover Amy assistant district attorney, and his partner Kate also a lover of Billy were all shot with two dead at the crime scene and one in a coma. When and if they wake up they will have a lot of explaining to do. That is the present. In the Past Billy and Kate were tracking a suspect that is a person of interest for the murder of a college girl. They follow the suspect to an underground brothel, but everything changes as they watch the mayor of Chicago enter. Billy makes the call to raid the brothel and take everyone in. There are so many moving parts to the raid the Black book of all the clients and the person/s who is protecting the brothel. With the black book not being found Billy and Kate are now the suspects as Amy the assistant district attorney is after them.

What I Liked: The suspect list is huge with everyone having a motive either politically, or for love. There’s a lot of secrets that come out. You will not trust a single suspect. There are double and triple crosses by many suspects, you’ll think someone’s good to have it flipped in the next chapter making the reader constantly guess who to trust. Billy does stand up for an old retiree friend and the jokes are for the most part funny. I loved the Asshole joke the best. I liked the way the story was told the past and the present work well together.

What I Disliked: Billy is always jokey but we only see a fraction of the veil being lifted as he lost his wife and daughter 3 years ago. I wanted to see his grief a little bit more. I did not like how fast Kate went to a Fatal Attraction obsessiveness after she started having sex after being partners for 9 years it was way too fast to go that borderline crazy. The Billy and Patty relationship was weird and Patty did not feel like a detective to me since she assumes so much instead of doing detective work.

Recommendation: On the cover, Patterson said he got the same feeling when writing this one that he did with Kiss the Girls, which I loved and I think this one is just as good if not better. This is a great mystery with lots of turns and some steamy sex scenes. The Black Book is a very solid thriller that reads fast and is filled with twists. I recommend you read The Black Book.

Rating: I rated The Black Book 4.6 stars out of 5 stars.