Review of 2 Sisters Detective Agency

I read what I like, but I also like to see what books are hanging out on the bestseller list. What did I think of James Patterson’s latest? Check out my Review of 2 Sisters Detective Agency!

2 Sisters Detective Agency by James Patterson and Candice Fox

Published on October 5, 2021 by Grand Central Publishing.

Synopsis: Attorney Rhonda Bird returns home after a long estrangement when she learns her father has died. There she makes two important discoveries: her father stopped being an accountant and had opened up a private detective agency, and she has a teenage half sister named Baby. Baby brings in a client to the detective agency, a young man who claims he was abducted. During the course of the investigation, Rhonda and Baby become entangled in a dangerous case involving a group of overprivileged young adults who break laws for fun, their psychopath ringleader, and an ex-assassin victim who decides to hunt them down for revenge.

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Review of 2 Sisters Detective Agency

I’ve read and enjoyed James Patterson books before, so I was excited to try 2 Sisters Detective Agency.

The book opens with Rhonda Bird in court. She’s not the typical lawyer, with her rock-and-roll fashion sense. The book also mentions her size, which, okay. She’s a white plus-size woman. But the book went on to mention the size of her body a LOT, which bothered me.

In true James Patterson style, this plot moved rapidly, with Rhonda discovering that her father was dead. Tragic, even though she hadn’t seen him for twenty-five years. She’s told to get herself to L.A., where she learns that her father has a detective agency and that Rhonda has a baby half-sister. Named Baby. Baby Bird is thin, biracial, and a teen influencer who is glued to her social media.

I get what the book was going for: sisters who are complete opposites, which happens often in families and does offer up a lot of potential for conflict and comedy. I did like the “sisters who don’t know each other” aspect of the story. But in such a plot-driven book, the potential for character growth and the opportunity to watch the sisters develop a relationship wasn’t really able to happen.

So, let’s talk about the plot. As the book opens, a man named Jacob is being terrorized, along with his family, in a home invasion. He becomes a point of view character as he tries to track down the gang whose treatment of his family landed his young, asthmatic daughter in the hospital, fighting for her life.

In turn, Rhonda and Baby are approached by one of the members of the home invasion gang (they are teens, just like in Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring.)

The plot of 2 Sisters Detective Agency moved quickly and kept me turning the pages. But to me it felt more like the basis for a movie or a streaming show than a book. Plus, Goodreads says this is a standalone, and there were LOTS of unanswered questions. Like why Jacob refused to go to the police. What happened to a character who literally gets away with murder. What Rhonda and Baby’s dad was really up to. And why a book called 2 Sisters Detective Agency does NOT have two sisters running a detective agency. I felt a bit (a LOT) cheated by that last part.

So we will see. If Rhonda and Baby actually return to run a business together, I will give that book a try.

Have you read this? Come check out my SPOILER POST AND DISCUSSION HERE!

If you love books about sisters, you can also check out my list of Best YA Books About Sisters!