Rating: 
Summary: Well, I'm done...
Review: ...no, not with the book, but with Patricia Cornwell. Done, done, done. Psychotic deranged serial killers who can keep it together enough to outwit, outfox, outplay and outlive the entire FBI and ATF? What is this Carrie person -- the boogey woman? Kaiser Soze? And Lucy -- no, no more please. Uncle! She is such a high maintenance whiny pill, like Meadow Soprano. Am I the only one who finds the aunt-niece relationship between Lucy the Pill and Kay the Wonder Woman to be a little -- well -- ooky?
This book was so lame I can't believe Patricia Cornwall actually wrote it, but I am going to finish it so I'll give it 3 stars.
Rating: 
Summary: Formula and stereotype trump logic
Review: A very enjoyable read in the Kay Scarpetta series, although a bit weaker story than some of the others. Still, well worth your time to read.
Rating: 
Summary: A little weaker, but still good
Review: A very enjoyable read in the Kay Scarpetta series, although a bit weaker story than some of the others. Still, well worth your time to read.
Rating:
Summary: It was good, even for a 'bad' book by her
Review: I don't consider myself a big fan of hers, though given this I sure have read enough of her books. The are well written, well researched, great plots. I don't even mind that all her female characters are all superstars (a lot of women are superstars ). The negative for me was the whining, the doctor and her neice are big whiners. I will read another book by her.
Rating: 
Summary: Same Old, Same Old...
Review: I love Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta series! Every book is so interesting. This book is as terrific as the rest, however, I was just as shattered as Kay, Lucy and Marino regarding the final victim of Carrie Grethen (or it is her final victim after all???). I was so angry and hurt! A testimony to the affect and quality of these novels on this reader, and, I'm trying to say this without giving anything away, is that I cried unabashedly for the last three chapters and then, was unable to even start the next book. I may have to wait a few months to take on Black Notice without, again, sobbing through the book. I am easily sucked into the worlds presented in books, but rarely are my reactions this intense.
One thing, though... Hey Patricia Cornwell! Is Kay Scarpetta EVER going to be happy???
Rating:
Summary: Classic Cornwell!
Review: I read a lot of the reviews for this book, and I really don't agree with most of them. I think that this book is an extremely good example of Ms. Cornwell's chilling writing. The dialogue and the plot are crisp and the detail is incredible. We find out a lot about fire investigation in this book. Yes, I admit Ms. Cornwell does get rather graphic and "over-the-top" in her violence, but that is what makes a Kay Scarpetta book so Unputdownable. I do agree with others, that readers must read this series in order. A lot of what happens in each book is a take off from what happened in a previous one. It would be confusing if you started partway through. Also, the character development progesses with each book, so the reader needs to get inside Kay's head and see things in the way she would have. In this book, we see a previous villain come back to haunt Kay and the people that she loves. Kay is called in to a fire investigation where a body is found burned beyond recognition. The more she digs into the case, the more disturbed she becomes and she realizes that she is dealing with true monster who probably had committed many murders before this one. Also, the more she digs, the more it becomes apparent that an old nemesis (Carrie Grethen) is somehow behind these terrible crimes. Her, Benton, Lucy and Marino set out to find a killer and one of the truly evil people that she has ever encountered. Before the final twist of the plot at the end, Kay suffers a very personal tragedy. We will have to read how that has affected her in the next installment.
Rating:
Summary: I kept up the page turning...
Review: Like many popular novels, this one is an easy and fairly quick read despite the fact that Cornwell often gives way too much detail and information in places. Near the beginning of this work she introduces a manager at a local motel that has red hair and a cat named "Pickles". She tells us why the cat is named Pickles, and if I could ask her, I'd wonder why she bothered. Somebody apparently likes Vidalia onions too, so what? I think some of the attention to detail, like what's for dinner and what color a meaningless characters shirt is, could have been left out.Cornwell does a good job of back story and I was surprised to find that a character from 'All That Remains', the only other novel of hers I've read, had died off in one of the previous books. By the end of this one, I decided that there was a plot line that Cornwell doesn't seem to escape from; Scarpetta is a bit of a loner and lots of her friends die including one in the the book I just mentioned. I suppose it propels readers into the next book, who will die next? But I find it too contrived. I never liked the premise of that tv show 'Murder She Wrote' either, how many people have someone around them get murdered all the time? In 'All That Remains' we have too many coincidences. Perhaps that is often how crimes are solved, through lucky breaks and the like, but here it was too much. And I really didn't care for the ending, it was too sudden and didn't have much suspense. It seemed like she decided it was time to end the book, so the killers just showed up and started shooting. Another complaint I have is simply that she leaves some issues unresolved. In the beginning of the novel, there is a black foal that has mysteriously escaped death and we are lead to believe this is some kind of foreshadowing, but it never gets resolved. Also the character that seems to be important at the beginning, the big-wig rich guy, ends up being almost meaningless, even though we are lead to believe he has some importance. A huge issue in trying to solve the crime, how the fires started and how they get so big, gets tons of play, but we never get told what actually happened. This was the biggest error of the book, I felt, there was all this drama building up about how they couldn't figure out how the fires got started and then we are never told what actually happened. One of the problems of writing from only one viewpoint, in the first person, is that it is sometimes awkward to describe events that the protagonist doesn't know about first hand. I'd give Cornwell an "A" for how she handles this technique, but to leave out something so important seems unforgivable. She does explain how the fire starts, but it is akin to saying they "used a match" she left out how they got so hot when that question was a huge story point to the fire detectives. And of course the characterization of Lucy was too much. If Cornwell wants to write about a computer genius, beautiful and perfect, able to do calculations in her head that everyone else needs a calculator for, able to fly helicopters, be a fire investigator, FBI agent, and so forth, perhaps she should make her the protagonist as she is almost like a female James Bond and she shouldn't be playing second fiddle. Despite my complaints, being picky and looking for faults is a character trait of mine, I'm still going to give this book a 4. In the field that it is written in, it is above average. I'd recommend, however, starting in the beginning of the series, unlike myself, as I think that would make the stories run together more smoothly. I'd also point out that this type of writing probably appeals more to female readers, but I'd venture to say I'll read more, they are certainly entertaining.
Rating: 
Summary: Incredible Charaters
Review: The knowledge that Patricia Cornwell has in forensic science and inside knowledge of the FBI and ATF is incredible. Reading this book, (along with the others) you are opening yourself up to an incredible education in the science of a forensic pathologist. I often have to remind myself that these characters are fictional, although i guess that is what a good author should make you do. I should hope that someday these books would be made into a TV miniseries or even a huge movie series. It would be a huge blockbuster and reach out to other audiences that perhaps do not read so much.
You're doing an increible job, Patricia Cornwell, I hope there is only more to come.
Leah
Rating:
Summary: Cornwell is a superb writer.
Review: This is more in the nature of a "customer comment" than a review(there are plenty of reviews already). I finished this book at 1 a.m. today and had nightmares the rest of the night. I thought it was extremely well written and one of PC's best efforts. I just read all the customer comments and now, upon reflection, it is obvious that she left some things out. How the fires started is never explained and admittedly, that is a big hole; but the quality of the writing is far superior to most books of this genre. It is hard to believe PC actually wrote Hornet's Nest which I found unreadable. Writing a series is obviously difficult, and she keeps up the quality better than most other authors do. i will recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a sophisticated, intellectually challenging read and doesn't mind the dark and sinister atmosphere.
Rating:
Summary: Formula and stereotype trump logic
Review: Warning, some of this may be a spoiler. The book is full of stereotypes. The young brilliant lesbian helicopter pilot/computer genius/cop. The male slob police captain. The overweight public defender who could have used a bra and is Jewish to boot (it apparently doesn't occur to Cornwell that some people who are accused are innocent, or that everyone has the right to counsel so defense counsel are all villains in her view. Racially stereotyped villians.) Worse than that, the plot doesn't hold water. A foal survives a fire in the stable. A lot is made of that early in the book. Then it's dropped. An escaped mental patient is able to follow and anticipate Scarpetta's every move. How did that happen? Worst of all is the stupidity of the police. A horse ranch burns. A burned car is found on the premises. A body that does not belong to the ranch or the car is found in the bathroom. The owner of the ranch early on tells Scarpetta who the person killed likely is. No attempt is made, apparently, to trace this woman's life or look for connections (such as did anyone she know own such a car) for a few weeks until Scarpetta goes out and does it herself. In fact no one ever attempts to find out who the car belongs to until it just happens that, when they find who the killer is they realize (wow!) that, hey -- this person owns that type of car. But, of course, if the police had any sense and, in investigating a murder by arson looked for who owned the car that didn't belong there, they would have found the killer in a few hours and this long book would have ended without the endless whining of Scarpetta about the state of the world and how horrible it is that people are in it that cause her to do what she does for a living. But of course, it's hard to credit the criminal genius Scarpetta is pursuing with being diabolically clever when that person leaves an auto at the scene of the crime. Give me a break!
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