10th Anniversary

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• Zero Stars

  disappointing

  Reviewed by Marianne V. | see all reviews by Marianne V.

  26/02/2012

  10th Anniversary is the 10th book in the Womens Murder Club by James Patterson. This edition is co-written with Maxine Paetro, as were the last six. Just married to Joe Molinari, Sergeant Lindsay Boxer is investigating the whereabouts of a baby born to a 15-year-old found dazed and wandering the street dressed only in a plastic poncho. The victims story changes so often that Lindsay and her partner, Rich Conklin, are on a wild goose chase to find the baby. Journalist Cindy Thomas discovers a spate of attacks where the victim is drugged, raped and returned close to home with all their possessions but no memory of events. Assistant DA Yuki Castellano is prosecuting the case of a respected Cardiac surgeon accused of shooting her philandering husband dead, a case Yuki needs to win after her last few losses. Medical Examiner Claire Washburn, the fourth member of the WMC, stays much in the background in this novel. As always, Pattersons chapters are short, sometimes comprising only one page of print over two pages, and what is there is filled with descriptions that add little to the story except, perhaps, cringeworthiness: Yukis heart was pumping pure hot adrenalin On two occasions, a waiter in a restaurant warns diners that the plates are hot: to what purpose in the story is anyones guess. It seems that Patterson is so busy with TV series and his prolific co-writing of other novels, or possibly adding his name to ghost-written novels, that he has no time to spare to write well for the two series that made his a household name, Alex Cross and WMC. This instalment has three unrelated plots that could have been disposed with much more smartly and satisfyingly than they were; the dialogue is often wooden (Tell me about that, said LaVan. Dont leave out a word.); the one occasion where he could have dealt with an interesting issue, when Cindy did a very stupid thing and got herself into a bad situation, Patterson took the cowards way out and allowed her to escape scott-free. Whilst the first six or seven WMC novels were very good, they have gone downhill since then and faithful WMC readers will be seriously considering if they should outlay good cash for another disappointment.
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