Allow me to cut right to the chase. Criminal defense attorney Jane Smith has been given only 12 months to live. We learn that pretty much from the onset, and it effectively colors the entire narrative of James Patterson and Mike Lupica’s latest collaboration, the aptly titled 12 MONTHS TO LIVE.

Patterson and Lupica also make it clear that Jane Smith is “the best character we have ever created, bar none.” It’s a bold statement, but Jane is an instantly endearing character whom readers surely will get behind. However, she might not even make it to the 12-month finish line based on a pair of volatile cases that literally threaten her life.

"Jane is an instantly endearing character whom readers surely will get behind.... 12 MONTHS TO LIVE is Patterson and Lupica at their best."

Jane was an NYPD officer and a private investigator before her legal career began. She has gotten so busy and successful that she brings on former colleague Jimmy Cunniff, who was run off the force due to suspicion around a dead suspect he may have had a hand in eliminating. The two of them make a formidable team, but even they are not strong enough to defeat father time or the cancer that has now spread from Jane’s neck and brain into her lymph nodes.

When she takes on the case of defending the extremely wealthy and, at least on the surface, possibly guilty Rob Jacobson, Jane realizes that she may need more than 12 months to see it to the end. Jacobson is accused of three brutal murders, the elimination of an entire family, which of course he vehemently denies. Like all good defense attorneys, Jane makes it clear to Jacobson that she doesn’t need to believe in his innocence --- she just needs to convince the 12 people on the jury of that.

Across the aisle is prosecutor Kevin “Front Page” Ahearn, who loves the camera almost as much as he enjoys winning. Bringing down an East End Long Island rich boy who the media does not care for would be a nice feather in his cap.

There is a second case on Jane’s docket that was brought to her by a trusted colleague, Greg McCall, from Nassau County. It revolves around corruption, and exposing the truth will bring justice to a handful of innocent people who died tragically. Jimmy gets put on that case as well. Jane now has a lot to take her mind off of her mortality. That is, until her mortality is threatened by something other than cancer.

When Ahearn puts up a witness who can place Jacobson with the 19-year-old woman who was one of his alleged victims, both drunk and amorous at a bar, things do not look good. It gets even stickier when the witness heads off on his boat one day only to have the boat return without him. Even though Ahearn is positive that Jacobson had a hand in this disappearance, he won’t accept a mistrial and insists on taking the case to the end.

At this point, the situation really begins to spin out of control. Jimmy finds a note under his windshield wiper that threatens Jane directly. Shortly after that, someone takes a few shots at her while she is out enjoying her life in the Hamptons/Montauk area of eastern Long Island. Making matters even worse, Greg goes missing, leading Jimmy to believe that the threats toward Jane and himself may be coming as a result of that case and not Jacobson’s. Either way, it sends the narrative down a continuing downward spiral where it appears that Jane may not make it to the end of her death sentence.

12 MONTHS TO LIVE is Patterson and Lupica at their best. As a lifelong New Yorker up until eight years ago, I always counted Lupica among my all-time favorite sportswriters. In recent years, he also has proven himself to be very capable of writing thrillers, and his pairing with Patterson is the ideal fictional kismet. I look forward to spending some more of Jane’s limited time when 8 MONTHS TO LIVE becomes available next year.