Private London

Private London is a thriller by the American writer James Patterson, published in 2011 as part of the series about the private investigation firm.

The office in the novel is run by Dan Carter, a former Royal Military Police sergeant, and the book's two cases are arranged so that they converge: the missing women are a serial investigation with a growing body count, and Hannah's situation is a protective job that turns out to be connected to the same person. Carter's own history, including a marriage that ended, is used to explain why he takes the case personally, and the novel moves between the firm's office, the police investigation run by his former wife and the streets where the abductions happen. Patterson's chapters are short and end on the turn, which is the method of the whole series, and the London setting gives the book its traffic, its street maps and its police procedure. The firm's founder, Jack Morgan, appears as the figure whose decisions created an obligation the London staff now have to honour, which is how the spin-off novels stay in touch with the older ones. The Private books are among the most widely read in Patterson's catalog, and this is one of several set outside the United States.