2005

OK. Cornwell spins a good yard and the Scarpetta series has held up well over the years. That's a given. The particulars of this entry find Scarpetta and Marino returning to Richmond to help solve the death of a thirteen year old girl. The sub plots with Benton and Lucy eventually get woven together in a less than climactic finale. In fact the blase, wind-down nature of this book is not satisfying at all; it left me wondering if Cornwell just ran out of gas on this one. An OK read if nothing else is pressing on your "to-be-read" shelf. ( )

I love Patricia Cornwell's books. Reading her comforts me even though the topic is violence and death. This book was just as engaging as most of her books but it ended with a lot unanswered. I'm not used to that with Cornwell. She set up several scenarios involving the parents of a murdered little girl, made us wonder in what way they contributed to her death, and then just dropped the possibility. It was a couple of days after I finished the book when I realized I felt cheated. Wait a minute - you didn't finish! I even hoped that maybe she had decided to continue the story in her next book. I've never known her to do that but I felt like she had pulled an end of season cliffhanger and maybe she was following the formula of other recent writers (think children and teen authors) who keep you hanging from book to book but continue the story. It's not unusual to buy a book from the bookstore with pages missing. But, unfortunately, I don't think that's what happened here. I know I'm using a lot of words to describe my disappointment - I wish she had used a few more. At over 500 pages she certainly could have tied up the stories of two of the more compelling characters. ( )

I've gone back over the information several times and think Cornwell's leap to solution is a bit facile, given the information at hand. I also find it unbelieveable that someone in their late 20s would remember an exactly moment as a child which resulted in major events more than decade later. I enjoy Cornwell's books -- they're good reads, with good writing and interesting subjects -- but they're getting a bit formulaic. ( )

This is much better than Blow Fly, with one exception. Cornwell has skipped yet another 5 years and not provided any key details.

Part of the book focuses on Marino more than Scarpetta, which is intriguing but still there is the annoying time gap.

I hope Cornwell's back on the right track here and continues to be less angry in her writing as well as attempting to provide some back story in future installments.

In the meantime, I 'm glad to have Scarpetta back. ( )