Short Summary
James Patterson and Maxine Paetro have really created something unique and noticeable with the Women's Murder Club series, and in the tenth book, titled 10th Anniversary, we see Lindsay and Yuki clashing against one another.
While the former investigates the case of a kidnapped newborn, she comes across evidence which could exonerate the suspect in the latter's case, a woman accused of having murdered her husband in front of her two young children.
James Patterson and Maxine Paetro Plot a Network of Secrets
We all like to think we can separate our personal and professional lives, but the fact of the matter is it very much depends on the type of profession a person practices. While most of us probably succeed in separating our worlds, Detective Lindsay Boxer and and Assistant District Attorney Yuki Castellano find it quite impossible to do in 10th Anniversary by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro, the tenth book in the Women's Murder Club series.
Though the previous book as well as the ones before it are certainly worth reading, this is the kind of series you can jump into wherever you'd like, each story acting largely as a standalone. As you can imagine, a good deal of character development has taken place between the first book and this one, but it's nothing that would prevent you from enjoying the story.
The plot opens with Lindsay Boxer's wedding celebration becoming a predictably distant past, supplanted by a rather gruesome case: a teenage girl was found badly injured and left for dead, with her newborn baby mysteriously kidnapped by some unknown party. The leads to follow are almost nonexistent, prompting Lindsay to dig deeper into the victim herself.
On her own end, Yuki Castellano is prosecuting a case which promises to determine her professional future. A woman, and a heart surgeon no less, has been accused of murdering her own husband right in front of her two young children, and it seems like a guilty verdict is nothing if not guaranteed. Naturally, the perfect situation becomes unexpectedly complicated when Lindsay finds a piece of evidence pointing to another potential culprit.
Being forced to juggle her work with her deteriorating marriage, Lindsay also finds herself facing the pressure of having to choose between professional integrity and her friendship with Yuki. Additionally, her situation doesn't improve when she discovers the victim in her case may be trying to hide some secrets of her own, and other victims of a serial crime come out of the woodwork. Essentially assailed from all sides, Lindsay will have to find a way forward, or lose the people she holds dear.
The Unethical Doctor in 10th Anniversary
As is customary with novels in the Women's Murder Club series, we are treated to multiple storylines, the two main ones following Lindsay and Yuki. Their cases don't always have them crossing paths, but in this case there is an overlap between the former's investigation and the latter's prosecution, which in my opinion, led to Yuki's plot feeling like the main one.
This, of course, is only my personal take on it, but I did find myself more interested in the courtroom drama than the other cases we're presented with (more on those later). To begin with, the doctor herself makes for a very interesting suspect, Patterson and Paetro doing an excellent job at misguiding us and keeping us guessing as to whether or not she's truly guilty.
They add more and more little details to the case which muddy the picture, pushing the reader to try and make the correct deduction before the fateful piece of evidence comes along which decides the doctor's fate beyond the shadow of a doubt. Generally-speaking, courtroom dramas tend to be a little predictable in their outcome, but 10th Anniversary successfully avoids this particular pitfall.
Naturally, there are plenty of twists and turns along the way, and they're worked adeptly into the plot, feeling like a natural development of the story rather than artificial rails to move the events along. A few of them do, of course, lack proper foreshadowing, but on the whole I'd say their presentation is a few levels above the average thriller.
The way in which Yuki's plot interlinks with Lindsay's is also quite interesting to see in its own right, especially since it puts the two colleagues in law enforcement on a collision course rather than having them openly helping each other for a change. The tension which Lindsay's discovery brings to the table perfectly heightens the tension of the trial, raising the stakes at the perfect moment.
Lindsay Pries Open the Victim
In a certain sense, if I was forced to choose one main character as the driving force behind the Women's Murder Club, it would naturally have to be Lindsay, especially considering her appearances in the previous novels. While this time around I found Yuki's part of the story to have been more engaging, don't walk away from this thinking Lindsay's part has little to offer.
On the contrary, her investigation into her own case is quite interesting and provides a nice contrast with the courtroom drama, feeling much more like a classic detective mystery. The afore-mentioned victim of the crime Lindsay is investigating is a rather curious character in her own right, a fifteen-year-old girl carrying a whole bag of mysteries on her back, one she isn't intent on opening.
Unravelling the girl's story bit by bit while trying to sort the truth from the lies was probably the highlight of Lindsay's segments, and even if the answers to a few of the questions ended up being a little banal and predictable, overall she makes for a solid mystery. The dynamic between the two captures the reader's attention not only due to promised revelations, but also because of its realistic feeling.
There are also some passages dedicated to Lindsay's personal life, and I think James Patterson and Maxine Paetro have done an excellent job at illustrating how one's strenuous professional obligations can infect the rest of one's life. We get to peer into her inner world once again, witnessing the toll taken on her by many cases dealing with the worst human beings have to offer.
The only gripe I have with the few passages of the book exploring the character's personal lives, is that some of them don't really feel necessary or like they add anything to the story. They are there to help develop and progress recurring characters in a long-standing series with no end in sight, meaning if you just read this book as a standalone, they won't exactly feel relevant to you. On the other hand, if you've been reading from the start, then I think it's a nice change of pace and mood to see how the ladies are getting on with their lives outside of work.
The Final Verdict
10th Anniversary by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro is both an excellent detective mystery and legal thriller, with all the cases leading to interesting investigations the reader can take part in while trying to anticipate all the clever twists and turns (as well as the couple of not-so-clever ones, but I digress) in time.
If you're a fan of the Women's Murder Club series and have been liking it so far, or are in search of a compelling thriller qualifying as a page-turner, then I think you definitely ought to give this book a try.
 | James B. PattersonPersonal site James Patterson is an American writer who has dedicated a large part of his literary career to writing murder-related thrillers, inventing in the process two memorable character-based series in Alex Cross and Michael Bennett. His most prominent works include Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider. |
 | Maxine PaetroShe has remained an active author, writing numerous novels since then, including Manshare, Windfall and Woman of God. Additionally, she is known for collaborating with James Patterson on numerous entries in the Women's Murder Club series. |
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