Customer Reviews: Read 45 more reviews...
 Characters are simply not believable. December 4, 2008
Meghan Hoban (Boynton Beach, FL)
I've read every Scarpetta book in order and I have grown increasingly annoyed with Scarpetta's characters. I expect an author with a series like this one to develop and layer their characters. Instead, we have a fantasy world where the latest technology, fast cars and personal heliocopters are the norm. Scarpetta is perfect. I can't see any flaws in her. She is gorgeous, cooks perfectly, gardens perfectly, is all-knowing. I much preferred Scarpetta when she was dealing with budget cuts and worried about her family. Lucy is insufferable. Marino is a caricature. She also introduces an African-American character who is literally a stereotype. I was seriously expecting him to refer to her as "master." I don't know...I was really frustrated.
As for the plot...it started promising enough. The murder of a wunderkind tennis champ and a psychopath on the streets of Italy. Okay, sounds good. However, I just can't get over how every man is dying to with lust for Scarpetta and travel is just a heliocopter away. Cornwell would do well to return to her roots. By the negative reviews here, it is clear that her audience is not connecting to her characters any longer.
Since when does Kay Scarpetta say idiotic things like "let's don't" ? December 1, 2008
Nicola J. Perry (Long Beach, MS)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is truly the last Patricia Cornwell book I am going to read. First of all, I am an ative duty member of a uniformed service and I certainly hope that nobody who reads this book gets a bad impression of soldiers or sailors....the overwhelming majority of us hate war, hate killing, hate death, hate suffering and hate prejudice (including the prejudice against us). The comments she makes in the book about the war and particularly the Air Force are extremely uneducated to the point of almost being laughable if they weren't so disrespectful. However, as an American, she is entitled to speak her mind and I have to accept that, but there is NOTHING redeeming about this book. The first book I read by Cornwell was The Body Farm when I was a junior in high school and I was so inspired...the book actually had a direct contribution to me joining the military, ironic, huh? Her latest books have been getting increasingly painful to read. I can look past her obviously anti-military leanings...it's the rest of it that gets me...changing Kay Scarpetta from the narrator to being referred to in the third person; having the highly educated and once classy Kay Scarpetta saying things like "let's don't" and referring to sex as "f&*ing" and Lucy is living out a teenage boys dream; ferraris, high tech equipment, super rich, give me a break. I guess the once fantastic author has totally lost her class and buried her talent in bitterness. In short, rent this book from the library if you are really curious, but expect that you'll be grateful you didn't spend the money to purchase it. In all due to respect to Cornwell (though I am losing that rapidly), if you are a first time reader of her material, I recommend that you read her first six or seven books and you'll appreciate why she's an award winning author...just don't expect too much from subsequent writings of hers.
 The Book of the Dead November 30, 2008
Rose Ann (USA)
Not one of the best Cornwell books I have read, but never the less, held my attention to the end. Marino definately a mystery to uncover.
 Book of the Dead November 22, 2008
Diane Foster
good book but not the best to come from Patricia Cornwell. It seems to be gettin a little off the track of the Scarpetta stories.
The victim is the only 'winner' November 18, 2008
Crystal Cason (New York)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Normally I find an author and read absolutely everything they've written.
However, I have found that Ms. Cornwell's writing has become increasingly depressing, and at an alarming rate.
With each new book, Ms. Cornwell has managed to drag every character, however peripheral, in Kay Scarpetta's infintesimal world further into a dysfunctional black hole. Each and every character should be on a ledge by now.
At least the victim is lucky enough to be tortured and killed off early in the storyline.
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