Books for/about - patricia cornwell

Publisher: Putnam Adult
Authors: Patricia Cornwell

ISBN: 0399153624
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Summary: At Risk
This book was not Patricia Cornwell's best. She did a great job in describing the charaters. I felt the book jumped around a lot in the beginning and was hard to follow. I found myself wondering where I was. As the book progressed it was easier to follow.

Summary: At Risk is shallow
From someone who loves Kay Scarpetta and the depth Patricia Cornwell puts into those novels, At Risk was a huge disappointment. I think the characters have depth potential that is never explored, but you feel as though you've been dropped in the middle of the story with little to no background or meaning behind what the characters do, feel or say. You feel as though you're dangling; you feel as though it was rushed. Not a typical Cornwell.

Summary: Waste of Money
When the book arrived, I knew something was wrong. It was very thin, not like the usual Cornwell books. And after reading it, all I could say was: What were you thinking Patricia. It was a waste of my time and my money. How disappointing, as her books are always greatly anticipated (since she got rid of those folks in Charlotte NC) and this was such a let down. Please Patricia, don't do this to your loyal readers again.
ellijaygirls

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Predator (Kay Scarpetta Mysteries)

Publisher: Putnam Adult
Authors: Patricia Cornwell

ISBN: 0399152830
List Price: $26.95
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Summary: The real Cornwell must have died some time back !!
Oh where has the old Cornwell gone. Man, did I love her books. The cover on this book sounded like the old Cornwell had returned but this is just another in a string of disappointments. This book is horrible - it jumps all over the place - it's more about people that really seem to not get along and don't know what their life is all about. Cornwell tries to mix in some of her old style but it just gets lost. It seems like her attempts are like the movies when they throw in nude scenes - just tryin to give you a little thrill.

I'm done buying her books. I miss the old Partricia Cornwell.

Summary: Obsessively self-critical
Cornwell's books were ground breaking. Gorey, but fascinating. Scientific and well-written. A precursor to CSI...but her more recent books, and Predator in particular, have degenerated into a confused plot of unreasonably intertwined and obsessively self-hating characters. Why does Cornwell think that her characters are so special that all the kooks would be after them? Why does Cornwell have to let us know every unhappy, angry, twisted, and often irrelevant thought of each character? Cornwell seems most interested in the uniform psychology of these damaged and self-destructive has-been characters. The book is painful to read.

Summary: a shame
Such a shame about Cornwell. I have read and re-read her Scarpetta books, but gave up when she switched to present tense writing, which I find jarring, distracting, pointless, and convoluted. I understand the immediacy the tense is supposed to provide, but I just hate it and don't know why she can't switch back to traditional past-tense form. Cornwell was at her absolute best with the early series, ala Post-Mortem and Cruel and Unusual. Sigh.

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	All That Remains: A Scarpetta Novel (Kay Scarpetta Mysteries (Paperback)) Publisher: Pocket Authors: Patricia Cornwell
ISBN: 074349153X List Price: $7.99 Amazon Price: $7.99 Usually ships in 24 hours Buy this book from amazon.com or from amazon.co.uk	Avg Cusomer Rating: 5 Reviews: Summary: All That Remains This is a true Patricia Cornwell book. It is pivoting and holds your interest. I thoroughly enjoy Cornwell's books and cannot wait for new ones to be released. Outstanding book. Summary: fine forensic police procedural When Deborah Harvey, the daughter of the National Drug Policy Director, and her boyfriend fail to return home, the FBI investigates based on the assumption that there is a link to her father's job. When their remains are finally found, the media, linking it without substance, to eight other dead in pairs of two near Williamsburg, Virginia, dub the culprit the Couples Killer. State Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta joins the investigation into the latest killings. Not much data can be gleaned from the skeletons though the killer leaves a glaring jack of hearts at each crime site. The Feds, state, and local law enforcement trip over each other like the Keystone Cops. Meanwhile Kay and Richmond homicide detective, Pete Marino, follow the paths, many of which dead end in cul de sacs, left behind by a devious killer made even more complex by a reporter and the Harvey family. This reprint of an early Scarpetta thriller is a fine entry as a difficult case turns ugly and convoluted by so many participants especially the interference by cops and amateurs. Kay, her Valkyrie cohorts, and Pete are at their best working through a myriad of potential clues obfuscated by politicians, reporters, cops and family members who devastate crime scenes and more. Fans of the great M.E. will enjoy this fine forensic police procedural. Harriet Klausner Summary: Dr. Scarpetta digs up more Weirdos A true thriller - lots of medical gore, and Kay finds plenty of layers of deception among her associates as she solves yet another perverse crime. She is a self-assured woman, often living in a men's world, asserting herself with uncooperative officials as need be as she goes about her medical detecting, while the rest of us cheer from the reading stands. This book is as engrossing and involving as any other book I've read by her, with a lot of psychological touches about what makes both good and bad people keep secrets. Summary:

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Black Notice

Publisher: Berkley
Authors: Patricia Cornwell

ISBN: 0425175405
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Summary: Powerful!
This is by far my favorite Scarpetta book. Cornwell does an excellant job of pulling the reader into what each of the main characters are feeling in the aftermath of the death of Benton Wesley. Opening with the letter was brilliant. I read this book in 3 days, I was on the edge of my seat and thought it was a really smart read.

While other people have not favored the ending, I did like it, because it leaves the door wide open for a comeback.

Summary: A Pity Party , Only For Hard-Core Fans
I stopped reading the Kay Scarpetta series after the first three books, and after reading this, the worst so far, I remember why: because I don't like any of the main characters. Which is a shame, because the author is skilled, the plot lines are really good, and the forensic medical detail is fascinating. Unfortunately this latest effort quickly degenerates into a weepy, whiny pity party for Kay Scarpetta, with everyone explaining everyone else's inadquacies by forcing their own patronizing pop-psychology 'insights' down other's throats. Way too much of the book is taken up with this nonsense, and the dialog becomes totally unbelievable. A hasty last-minute grafting of an international plot twist late in the book does nothing to mitigate the soap-opera quality and irritating personalities of all the people in it.

Lucy, who started in the Scarpetta series as a brat who needed a serious spanking, has developed into such an angry neurotic that it's beyond comprehension that she passed the FBI / ATF psych tests during the hiring process. Of course, Lucy is now a stereotyped lesbian as well. Lucy's subplot in this book is a clumsy and needless complication that serves only to fill a lot of boring pages and never goes anywhere beyond the requisite awful-parent issues.

Marino has also degenerated from an annoying but harmless redneck to a truly wacko jerk. How someone so ignorant, narrow-minded, and incompetent could make it to the ranks of detective is also beyond comprehension. In Black Notice, Marino has no redeeming qualities whatsoever, and Scarpetta herself keeps telling him to be quiet and go away. Obviously she doesn't think too highly of him either, so why does she waster her time with this clown? The promising subplot with Marino's new supervisor quickly goes from being his problem to yet another poor-Dr-Kay, being betrayed by her own people issue(yawn) - the sudden resolution of which is a total cop-out, excuse the pun.

And then there's Scarpetta herself, who used to be interesting in the beginning of the series, but changed into a self-pitying, sanctimonious rich witch who is more concerned with her status toys (BMW, expensive house, antique furniture), and safeguarding her official power than with doing her job, except as a boost to her overinflated ego. This is not a character your average pay-check stretching, just-getting-by reader could identify with. And it took her far too long to figure out the 'long, soft baby hair'clue - she is supposed to be a hotshot medical examiner, after all. If she spent less time trying to get back at people out to ruin her, and more on working her actual cases, she'd get these insights sooner. Of course, in a story with so many tangled, unnecessary and ultimately unresolved subplots, it's hard to imagine anyone getting anything done at all.

It's a shame that this book was such a dog. I have great respect for this author's writing ability, which kept me turning the pages even when I wanted to throw the book across the room. I just hope that her future efforts focus more on plot - her great skill - and ease up on the annoyance factor of her increasingly strident characters. Surely they have some redeeming qualities. It's far past time to let them shine through.

Summary: Good...but could have been great.
I enjoyed the book but felt slightly let-down by the conclusion.
As ever, the plot and chacterization was spot-on and the story unfurled with ease.
Richly detailed, the novel crackled with energy throughout, so was such a shame that the ending wasn't stronger.

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Unnatural Exposure

Publisher: Berkley
Authors: Patricia Cornwell

ISBN: 0425163407
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Avg Cusomer Rating: 3
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Summary: Easy Read
This was a slow start for me that became a page turner. I can't say it was my favorite Scarpetta book - but likeable. I really like how Cornwell has created Scarpetta to be a real person and she really shows emotion in this book - caring for one that I haven't seemed to find in others. Caring for Wingo, the innocent mans mother ( don't want to give anything away), and after the virus breaks out - the state. I also like how Cornwell has finally let Kay be at peace with Mark's death, and how she enveloped Benton into it.

All in all, good read

Summary: Great Mystery
I thought this was a real page turner. It was chalk full of forensics details that made the tense action very real to me. The action was smart and full of unpredictable surprises. At the same time, Dr. Scarpetta is a very human and likeable character, and the book has quite a bit of deep emotion in addition to the fast action.

Summary: Not Bad Crime Mystery
Straight from the scripts of CSI (Crime Scene Investigations) comes Dr. Kay Scarpetta, chief medical examiner of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Briefly, Dr. Scarpetta has to hunt down a serial killer who is dismembering bodies and leaving the torsos in landfills. The case takes a turn when a strange illness is found on an isolated Maryland island. The cases both are in the hands of Dr. Scarpetta as they merge to confront her and all of her crime lab skills with a deadly and potentially devastating challenge.

This is my first Cornwall book and it wasn't bad. The first couple of chapters were a little slow, but when the killing virus entered the story via the watermen of the Chesapeake Bay, it picked up and held my interest. Cornwall keeps several story lines going including her complicated romantic life and her FBI niece (a cyber expert). All of these threads end up being aspects of the big case -- Dr. Scarpetta can't get away from the office at night over a glass of wine or at a family gathering.

The book is light and easy to read with interesting technical parts dealing with disease and crime lab analysis. There are no James Bond types here, the hero is Dr. Scarpetta's wits as she builds the evidence in a race against the next strike by her diabolical adversary.

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	Body Farm Publisher: Scribner Authors: Patricia Cornwell
ISBN: 0684195976 List Price: $23.00 Amazon Price: This item is currently not available. Buy this book from amazon.com or from amazon.co.uk	Avg Cusomer Rating: 5 Reviews: Summary: The Body Farm Review I loved this book. It is very factual about the crime sences. I love anything to do with Crime Sence Investigations! Summary: Don't bother I was expecting a gripping murder mystery... when in reality it was a glorification of the main character in dressed up language that provokes no thought. This book simply feeds simple images and personas into the readers' heads and does nothing to stimulate a thought process. I was very disappointed when I found out on pg 383 that I had been right since pg 40. The storyline is remotely creative but the answer to the "mystery" is painfully obvious through the entire book. Summary: Good enough to read another Cornwell book...but on probation... I actually got the Audio book from the library. I liked it for the first half of the book. Really enthralled. But by that time, I felt I had most of it figured out. But with a book, it's hard to "surprise" anyone, unlike in a film, where you may have missed a 'subtley' on 5 second flash on a screen that takes 3 pages to describe, that if you reviewed after the fact, you'd say "Of COURSE that's who did it, see the clue". However, even having said that, I felt like there were a few too many clues too early in the book...or maybe it's just that the middle seemed so long. The ending is indeed very abrupt, in fact I was disaapointed to get to the 10th CD, with so much solved in my mind, but knowing it was going to be wrapped up in just one chapter and tied in just a tad too neat of a little bow. However, the character development is really good for most of the characters, and you feel like you really get to know them. At first, the woman doing the reading for the audio book is a little distracting, particularly her attempt at male voices...but as you get acclimated, it improves. She does a very good job of staying consistent with her character voices throughout all 10 CD's though. All in all, I'll read/listen to another Cornwell book, but I'll be expecting it to be better than this one before I'd attempt a 3rd. Summary:

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Trace (Kay Scarpetta Mysteries)

Publisher: Putnam Adult
Authors: Patricia Cornwell

ISBN: 0399152199
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Summary: Forget it.
Ridiculous, convoluted and unresolved plot with main characters that have become predictable and boring.

Did Cornwell even write this one herself? If so, she missed a glaring discrepancy when she proofread: On page 216 Marino remembers Mrs. Paulsson greeting him at the door "wearing jeans and a soft pink sweater", but later when he tells Scarpetta what happened during his visit to the house he describes her as having worn black books and a camouflage shirt when she opened the door.

Perhaps it was the author's attempt to let readers think Marino only imagined the pink sweater scenario because he was too ashamed to remember what really happened. However, to this reader it comes across simply as a mistake the author forgot to go back and correct.

Summary: SHOULD WE ALL JUST GIVE UP..........???
On our beloved Kay Scarpetta and the illustrious Ms. Cornwell? Having been an avid fan of her novels from the very beginning, I simply cannot help but ask myself....is she really writing this stuff?
Very slow in the beginning, I began to fear a repeat of the struggle that I endured to finish Blowfly. However, this novel does begin to pick up momentum...but not until the reader is halfway through, and certainly not until this author had left me sufficiently disgusted. The storyline finds Scarpetta summoned home to the scene of the crime...Richmond, Virginia, where her previous employer seeks her assistance in unwraveling the mysterious death of a young girl. So Scarpetta---with Marino tagging along of course---heads back to Richmond from her new home in Florida to offer assistance; only to find that her old building is being demolished...and that the new one, under the leadership of Dr. Joel Marcus, is sloppy regarding policies and procedures. The demoralization of her former staff by Dr. Marcus is also unnerving to Scarpetta; and clearly he resents her intrusion. So why has he asked her to come?
Meanwhile, Lucy, as head of The Last Precinct, is once again up to her ears in nonsense. For such a brilliant, successful young woman (as readers have always been lead to believe), why must Cornwell insist on making her so completely stupid in her literary life? In this tale she is once again romantically linked with a narcissistic sociopath who also happens to be her employee.
Worse than the weak storyline, and the fact that this novel is just all over the place, is the author's disturbingly sterotypical portrayal of African-Americans throughout. Drug dealers are black, they're dead of gunshot wounds, and most ludicrous of all is in one instance Cornwell references a dead young man's "conspicuously large organ." Are you kidding me? The trash collectors are "big dark men" and of course in an upscale neighborhood, the "old black woman" must WORK in one of the houses. The author's unbelievably narrow-minded, stereotypical view of other races is disturbing at best, and frankly makes one think that she may just be as stupid from a common sense perspective as Lucy.

Read only if you must, but frankly there are better ways to spend your time.

DYB

Summary: Who is really writing these??
I'll be honest, the last three novels have me thinking that Patricia Cornwell has sold off the franchise of her name- the "voice" the writer uses bears no similarity to her other novels, and its very frustrating. Leaves a dedicated reader feeling like she'd been attacked by the pod people or something!
I hold firm to the idea that she hasn't been writing these novels. There is just no way.

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Cause of Death

Publisher: Berkley
Authors: Patricia Cornwell

ISBN: 0425158616
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Avg Cusomer Rating: 2
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Summary: Bleh, sigh, ugh
Well, I love listening to books on CD during my commute. Frankly, I can't decide after 4 of the 10 CDs included in this package whether I should continue to listen or not. The reader's voice -- C.J. Critt -- is really irritating. Her inflection on certain words doesn't work and the voices she uses for some of the characters are so off-putting. After being almost halfway through, I really would like to know what happened to this AP reporter/scuba diver, but I'm not sure I can handle sitting through 6 more CDs. The whole story seems amateurish, and I agree with another reviewer who said that the know-it-all aspect of the protagonist is tedious. Let's just say I wouldn't recommend it. This is the first book I've picked up from Cornwell, and I probably won't pick up any others.

Summary: Eh.
Normally I like this author's stuff, but this was not one of her better efforts. Maybe next time.

Summary: This novel has 'no mystery', 'no suspense' and 'no solving' involved
The Editorial review states that Dr. Key Scarpetta is back to solve the mystery of the death of a reporter. After suffering through the book, though there are two murders of note in the book, I did not see any 'solving' of the murders by Dr. Key Scarpetta. She just had to be "present' and the 'solving' took care of itself.

This is the first book that I have read of Patricia Cornwell and will definitely be the last. This is definitely a formulaic book written for hard core fans.

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