Southern Cross

I zoomed through this book. In Southern Cross, Cornwell takes us close to the sometimes zany (but always threatening) experiences of big-city police, in a story of corruption, scandal, and robberies that escalate to murder. The setting is Richmond, Virginia, where former Charlotte police chief Judy Hammer has been brought, by an NIJ grant, to clean up the police force. Reeling from the recent death of her husband, and resented by the Richmond police force, city manager, and mayor, Hammer is joined by her deputy chief Virginia West, and rookie Andy Brazil on the most difficult assignment of her career. In the face of overwhelming public scrutiny, the trio must find the link between the desecration of Confederate president Jefferson show more Davis's statue and the brutal murder of an elderly woman.

I will add that this book was much funnier than I expected. The fight between the police dispatcher, Patty Passman, and the traffic cop, Rhoad Budget, has to have been put in for pure comic relief. And there are other bits here and there that offset some of the horrific details.

As a Canadian, the pervasive use of guns is somewhat offputting. When Bubba goes to the gun dealer to by a gun to replace the ones stolen from his garage and talks about the rule that a person can only buy one handgun every 30 days, I was appalled. The only use for a handgun is to shoot another person and why you would need to buy one every month is beyond me. show less

I read the 3 Andy Brazil books against advice from more than one person. I wanted to see for myself if they really were that bad. I liked the Scarpetta books (although I thought that the endings of some of those books were too rushed, too contrived). The Andy Brazil books are nothing like those! Hornet's Nest is probably the best of the three, although the characters are shallow and unconvincing and the plot is weak and implausible. There is some humour and some sexual tension which is frustrating for lack of relief. 5/10. Southern Cross degenerates from this. Ms Cornwell seems to be having fun at our expense, but the result isn't really funny or vaguely satisfying. 3/10. Isle of Dogs, well, how much lower can you go? What were you show more thinking, Ms Cornwell? Or what drugs were you on? This book was ridiculous! I persisted to the end of these books because I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt. Not sure why I bothered. Even if one reads these as tongue-in-cheek romps through the workings of a Police Dept, the final book is hugely disappointing. 1/10. Scarpetta fans who pay full price for these books will feel angry and very much cheated. Luckily I bought mine 2nd hand. Readers whose first taste of Cornwell is one of these books will never buy another. Whatever you do, don't pay full price for these books! show less

I bought this book in a secondhand shop in Deventer (Netherlands) after reading another book Cornwell and enjoying it - what a silly mistake!
The characters are not developed, and parts of their stories are hardly relevant. The plot is totally unbelievable: A kid hacks into a web-site and changes the screen saver on police computers in people's homes ?!?!? Computers in homes that are turned on remotely !?!? Some weird URL created by someone who knows nothing about computers!?!? And the reference at the start of the book (also in the book title) to the strong families in the south never reappears. I'm not a woman, but would a woman really leave hints of another lover to bring to jealousy a previous lover and current colleague? And a cat show more who makes sure he sees these clues? 1/5 stars - because I was not allowed to enter 0/5 show less

This is one of Cornwell’s “alternate” books – not a Kay Scarpetta mystery, but a thriller featuring a female police chief from Charlotte, North Carolina. This time, she’s in Richmond, with a huge cast of characters whose stories all merge into an unclimactic climax. While I liked this one better than its predecessor, Hornet’s Nest, it still didn’t quite gel. I just got the feeling that these characters and this story didn’t mean as much to Cornwell as the recurring characters in her much better Scarpetta novels.

In this book, our heroes, Officer Andy Brazil, Deputy Chief Virginia West, and Chief Judy Hammer, have relocated to Richmond, Virginia, to improve the police department with a new computer program called COMSTAT—which fails miserably. The author uses every play on words imaginable—anagrams, aptronyms, inaptronyms, and malapropisms—mixed with racial slurs to tell a humorous story about cops and their antics. However, it's a story I can see some people lacking a sense of humor, including the residents of Richmond, might take offense to.

Southern Cross is the second of Patricia Cornwall's Andy Briggs and Judy Hammer mystery series. I had not known the series existed, but the set was being offered for free, so I took a chance on it. I can't say that I liked any of the characters much except for bullied, but talented teen Weed (it's his real name). Weed is being bullied by an older teen who calls himself 'Smoke'. Smoke is either a sociopath or a psychopath. He has a gang of five, forcing Weed to be his fifth. Smoke wants to put his Pikes gang on the map. Weed is terrified, but tries to alert the police through a computer map. Too bad someone else linked a lot of addresses together so that Weed's blue fish are tying up a police computer site.

Weed is ordered to paint the show more statue of Jefferson Davis in Richmond's cemetery. Because Weed is Black and he painted the statue to look like his late older brother, Twister, a college basketball star, you can probably imagine the horror and outrage that ensues.

One of the characters is Bubba, who has a belief about his employer, Philip Morris, that is crazy enough for the internet. Bubba is constantly being taken advantage of by his supposed friend, Smudge. Their cell phone conversation about going on a [ra]coon hunt is overheard by Judy Hammer and she immediately thinks of 'coon' as the racist slur for Black persons and assume they're intent on murder.

It took me almost two and a half-months to listen to all eight cassettes because I didn't care about most of the characters and events -- up until about cassette six, when it started getting interesting. The climax takes a potentially horrifying situation and turns it into a farce, so that wasn't bad.

Aside from the murder victim, of course, the book appears to be written as light humor. I wouldn't have given it as many as three stars if it hadn't improved so much during the second half.

Cat lovers should enjoy Nigel.
Dog lovers might like the coon hounds during their hunt. Boston terrier fans should enjoy Popeye. show less

I found this book to be exceedingly amusing -- not something I expected from a Patricia Cornwell book. Lacking the "usual" gore, this story is full of a wide variety of extreme characters who live seemingly impossible lives. Through circumstances sometimes beyond belief, their lives intersect to create even more implausible and more amusing events. Laughable moments as words and actions are misinterpreted to their worst potential.