The Ninth Month by James Patterson and Richard DiLallo

Published by Grand Central Publishing on August 23, 2022

James Patterson tells The Ninth Month in alternating sections devoted to the past and present until the two stories converge. The past unfolds over the months of a woman’s pregnancy. The present follows the woman’s friends and a couple of police officers who look for clues to the pregnant woman’s disappearance.

Emily Atkinson, an attractive woman of 32, parties hard, screws up her marketing job, and has multiple heart attacks caused by mixing drugs with booze. When she realizes she is pregnant by one of a few possible men, she wonders whether she should stop drinking and give birth, slow down her drinking and terminate the pregnancy, or postpone any decision until her brain cells are fueled by more martinis. A pregnant nurse named Betsey befriends her and tries to help her make responsible choices.

Betsey becomes concerned when Emily suddenly disappears. Betsey’s concern is heightened by two facts. First, another pregnant woman in Emily’s neighborhood, who is about the same age and worked in the same industry, was murdered. Second, Emily thought she was being followed before she disappeared. At the same time, Emily’s perceptions are clouded by alcohol. Perhaps her stalker is a product of her drunken imagination.

The story in the present centers on Betsey’s attempt to motivate two police detectives to look for Emily. The male detectives has a history with Emily, which makes him a suspect. A number of other men have a history with Emily or intersect with her life, including a drug dealer, a bartender, a television writer, and her former boss.

Plot development is deliberate, but the novel is not slow moving. The chapters set in the past grow Emily’s character. Stories about a struggle with sobriety are common and familiar, but this one is more effective than most. Emily is great at her marketing job but being fired because she’s a drunk doesn’t change her life because she comes from money and doesn’t need to work. Whether her pregnancy will motivate her to stop drinking — whether anything make her change her identity as a party girl — is more suspenseful than the threat she might face from her stalker.

The theme of a pregnant woman who contemplates an abortion before she bonds with her fetus has been done to death. Emily’s detailed characterization is wasted on the trite notion that women always turn themselves into responsible mothers if they choose not to end a pregnancy. Frankly, Emily has probably done so much damage to her fetus that giving birth is a questionable decision.

Parts of the plot come across as contrived. The stalker's reveal is not entirely surprising, although it does incorporate a moderately clever twist. The ending seems like the product of lazy writing. The Ninth Month is not terribly successful at building or sustaining suspense (Patterson didn’t bring his A-game effort in that regard), but its portrait of a woman struggling to get her life together is both engaging and convincing.

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