Rating: 
Summary: Sadness & disappointment via Patricia Cornwell
Review: I am a very devoted Cornwell, or maybe Kay Scarpetta fan -- I'm not sure as her deviation from the KS format two books ago was so awful. There was no need to kill off Benton -- if Ms. Cornwell is so devoted to KS living a miserable and lifeless existence, please stick to writing the church bulletin. You can do all your preaching there. I don't know if I can bring myself to read another of Ms. Cornwell's books, she took my love for her writing and flushed it down the toilet, with a "good riddance" in the process.
Rating: 
Summary: As usual, Patricia delivers terrific suspense!
Review: Pat Cornwell is a terrific author. I anxiously await each new book. She's the only author I buy in hardcover. I love her warmth. She has a way of reaching inside her readers and leaving us wanting more!!
Rating:
Summary: Flimsy research
Review: I know it had nothing to do with the overall story of the book, but when PC was describing the process of shoeing a horse - and had the farrier sitting on a stool while doing it - I had to put the book down - for days. I have owned horses for years, used several different farriers, in different states and they all use the same basic technique and NONE of them have used a stool - I can't even fathom how they could correctly shoe a horse while seated. It wouldn't have taken but a few minutes to phone a local farrier in her area, maybe even visit a stable while the farrier was working. It seems in all her other books she has taken such pains to give accurate details, so the reader really feels like they are there (or Kay is really there), but she missed the mark this time. I also felt she placed too much emphasis on Lucy's lesbianism in this book. Fine, she's gay, let's just get on with the story already! This was not one of her best efforts.
Rating: 
Summary: A "Can Put Down"
Review: Usually a Cornwell fan who finishes within a couple of days or a week, but took me nearly 3 months to wade through this one. I am not sure why I even plugged along! The murder/arsonist storyline seemed intriguing and filled with hope. The book got too caught up in tedious details of the personal lives of Kay, Lucy, et al. Interesting characters deserve much more interesting dialogue, actions, and lives! A potentially suspenseful plot with a few new twists got dumped for scenes such as visiting Lucy's apartment? Maybe Cornwell has written one too many books! I want the suspense and mystery back, but only if she can come up with new motives, new perpetrators, and a whole new outlook on life for Kay.
Rating: 
Summary: Well-researched, emotionally vulnerable
Review: As a pure mystery story, I would rate the book as 3 stars, especially because the climax was very short, and some things were left unexplained. It doesn't seem that Cornwell is that interested in writing a typical mystery. For me, though, reading Point of Origin was time well spent. Just because a story is depressing doesn't make it worthless. In fact, I found it ultimately cathartic--wasn't that the purpose of the ancient Greek tragedies?
Rating:
Summary: Impressed with PC's ability to "grow" her characters
Review: Having read each KS novel, I am impressed with how PC has tended and nurtured each of her characters like fragile seedlings. While I do not agree with the direction each character takes, it is not important. The issue is believability. Like close friends who do not heed our advice, I am caught up with each characters' energies, triumphs, and short-comings. Kudos, PC for daring to risk change. You bring empathy and sensitivity to an otherwise cold science. Victims have your voice to express their outrage and surviving friends and family have your moral indignation to commune with theirs when the rest of the world is too busy watching soap operas and Wheel of Fortune.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Cornwell's best ever
Review: I have just finished reading "Point of Origin", and it was quite a disappointment. When I first started reading Cornwell ("Post Mortem"), I loved her books. They kept me in suspense, and I could not put them down until I was finished. My only complaint was that she would take the reader through this very intricate mystery, only to fabricate some killer within the last few pages. She didn't give the reader a chance to guess who the killer was. I didn't like that style of mystery. Now she's gone the opposite direction, and has been recycling past villians. How many more times will we have to read about Temple Gault? How many books ago did he appear? The three stars I give her are for the technical details of the plot. It's the characters I'm disappointed with this time. Not just the villians, but Kay Scarpetta herself. I think this latest effort was better than some of her others (e.g. "Cause of Death"), but the only reason this one was a page turner was because I was anxious to get it over with.
Rating:
Summary: Anger and anguish
Review: Once again, Patricia Cornwell has come up with a first rate mystery. It will probably be the last one by her that I read, because frankly, I'm weary of the angst of her characters. Kay Scarpetta is a lonely, driven, sad woman who has a lonely, driven, sad niece. Neither of them seems quite real. Is there any joy or love in their lives? Doesn't seem so, and it's tiring. The villain of the piece -- Carrie Grethem -- will undoubtedly turn up again in the next novel. Her demise was not certified, and I can't read one more word about a woman who can manipulate any and all circumstances at her pleasure. As I said, the mystery was a good one, if a bit gory. But nothing good, or fun happens to any of the protagonists. When we leave them this time, it's at the scene of a funeral, and I can't help but believe that their sad lives will just go on in this vein as long as we buy the books. I've bought my last one.
Rating:
Summary: Not one of her best, but definitely a good mystery.
Review: Patricia Cornwell can definitely match, and usually outdo, any mystery writer I've ever read, bar none. I have read every novel she has written, and have been disappointed only once, and that was when she strayed from her usual format ("Hornet's Nest"). Her forensic knowledge is intriguing, if not amazing. This one missed the mark only slightly. But, the lesser of one of the best surely beats the best of the lesser.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing after waiting for this one.
Review: I almost gave up on the book about one third of the way through, but because of loyalty to the author, I kept plugging along. Although it does get a bit more like a Cornwell story, the Lucy plot line is basically not interesting.
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