1st to Die

1st to Die is a crime novel by the American writer James Patterson, published in 2001. It is the first book of the Women's Murder Club series.

The series is about four friends who pool what they know in order to crack San Francisco's toughest murder cases. Lindsay Boxer is a homicide inspector with the San Francisco Police Department; Claire Washburn is a medical examiner; Jill Bernhardt is an assistant district attorney; and Cindy Thomas is a reporter who has just started working the crime desk of the San Francisco Chronicle.

The book opens with Lindsay in a depression and holding a gun to her head, after losing someone she loved in a case the novel calls the Honeymoon Murders. The story then goes back to the beginning, when David and Melanie Brandt are in their hotel room at the Grand Hyatt on the night of their wedding and a man outside the door calls out that he has champagne.

The killing that follows brings Lindsay the case, and the novel also follows her through the news her doctor gives her, a rare and deadly blood disease called Negli's aplastic anemia, and through the transfusions and the fear that come with it.