Rating: 
Summary: Great story, weak characterization
Review: Patricia Cornwell still tells a great story, but her characters are shrinking -- their dimensions are becoming too narrow and unmotivated. Scarpetta is depressed and cranky, Lucy is "acting" strange and stranger and Pete is eating too much, smoking too much and kvetching too much. It's time for some motivated development for these folks. And Talley, whom Kay meets and beds and rejects in a 24 hour (?) period, is too shallow to convince the reader that Kay is getting it all together again by letting him into her life. The book also has a villain who's distinguishing personality feature is his unusually long hair. Hirsute is not compelling and in fact it's not believable. I hope Cornwell can bring her characters to life again, but she needs to discard the paranoia and the depression themes (and we've also read enough about bad folks manipulating the e-mail at the morgue). In the beginning, Scarpetta was a bright, resilient, indefatigable woman who shed her problems and solved the crime; we need to see her in that role again. Send Kay back to the bar at Louies Backyard and let her find herself again.
Rating: 
Summary: It's Never Over in Black Notice
Review: Patricia Cornwell's novel, Black Notice, is a very intriguing read. Kay Scarpetta, Virginia's Chief Medical Examiner, is given the autopsy of a man found in a freight container on a cargo ship from Europe. This "cargo man" was found with unexplainable animal-like hair all over his body. Kay's next autopsy is a sales clerk who was mutilated by her murderer, and coincidently contained the same strange hair on her body. Through INTERPOL (international police) Kay learns that the murders are linked to similar ones in Italy. Kay has to put her job on the line so she can find out confidential information that is only known to one other. To make matters worse someone in Kay's office is trying to sabotage her identity and ruin her career. It doesn't stop there. The new deputy chief, Diane Bray, is trying to take over the Homicide department and has demoted Kay's best friend, Pete Marino. Not to mention Kay's niece, Lucy, is involved in a undercover drug shooting. Cornwells explicit imagery and thorough explanations help to set a vivid scene throughout the entire novel, "Every inch of skin was dried wipes and smears and swirls reminding me of finger-painting again, her face a mush of splintered bone and battered tissue." Cornwell succeeds in keeping the readers attention throughout the novel, once you think no more problems can arise, something new happens. The ending of Black Notice was very dramatic and unexpected although Cornwell could have tied up a few more loose ends, but I believe that will be explained in her next novel. Overall Black Notice is an interesting, descriptive and suspenseful novel.
Rating: 
Summary: Another great Scarpetta story
Review: Really enjoyed this one - great - just like the previous 10 Scarpetta stories!
Rating:
Summary: The Best of all the Scarpetta Books
Review: The discovery of a decomposed body in a locked container on a cargo ship is going to set Dr. Kay Scarpetta against the most dangerous killer she has ever faced. The container came from France and the killer calls himself le loup-garou which is French for werewolf. Now he's on the loose in Virginia and Kay winds up on the case and the killer winds up putting Kay in his sights.Like the best of Cornwell's books we get insight into the characters we've come to care so much about. Kay is still numb from the lose of Benton Wesley. Someone is trying to ruin her reputation by sending e-mails from her address and she has to deal with that. Marino has been suspended and niece Lucy is doing undercover work that Kay believes is dangerous. Events set these friends against each other even as the killer closes in on Kay. In my opinion this is the best Scarpetta novel to date. Excellent characterization, vivid description and plenty of action. Five stars all the way. Review submitted by Captain Katie Osborne
Rating:
Summary: Too Many Coincidences is almost the undoing of this book.
Review: There are a number of very glaring coincidences in this book and I think that this is the biggest problem with the book. For example, how could a case that Kay's Lucy is working for AFTA in Miami have anything to do with a homicidal maniac in Kay's town of Richmond? But in spite of this glaring inconsistency, I still enjoyed the book. We see Kay at her most vulnerable here and to those of us who have followed her story from the beginning, it is understandable. This book takes place a year after Kay's lover, Benton was killed in the line of duty, and in typical Kay fashion, she has really not dealt with her feelings about that. She has been burying herself in her work as usual. The killer that is stalking Kay's city forces her to deal with some "unlaid-to-rest" issues surrounding Benton's death. This is quite a dark book, but an edge-of-your-seat thriller that keeps the reader guessing until the end. We also see some real character development in some of the main characters; particularly Marino and Kay herself. It is so important that this series be read in order, and unless it is I don't think readers get the true scope of the series, and they certainly can't see the character development that occurs in each subsequent book.
Rating:
Summary: Too Many Coincidences is almost the undoing of this book.
Review: There are a number of very glaring coincidences in this book and I think that this is the biggest problem with the book. For example, how could a case that Kay's Lucy is working for AFTA in Miami have anything to do with a homicidal maniac in Kay's town of Richmond? But in spite of this glaring inconsistency, I still enjoyed the book. We see Kay at her most vulnerable here and to those of us who have followed her story from the beginning, it is understandable. This book takes place a year after Kay's lover, Benton was killed in the line of duty, and in typical Kay fashion, she has really not dealt with her feelings about that. She has been burying herself in her work as usual. The killer that is stalking Kay's city forces her to deal with some "unlaid-to-rest" issues surrounding Benton's death. This is quite a dark book, but an edge-of-your-seat thriller that keeps the reader guessing until the end. We also see some real character development in some of the main characters; particularly Marino and Kay herself. It is so important that this series be read in order, and unless it is I don't think readers get the true scope of the series, and they certainly can't see the character development that occurs in each subsequent book.
Rating:
Summary: Black is the word
Review: This book is thoroughly researched and minutely detailed. The characters spend all their time getting mad. The mechanics of Cornwell's writing is generally good, and she even gets off a couple memorable lines ("toxic waste in tight clothes"). However, some of the writing is stilted. Marino, the angry buffoon, never steps off the page for me; this may be because I've read none of Cornwell's other books. The scene where the young lady pulls up to the store and shouts the murder victim's name (to contrast with Bray's coldness) comes straight from Frosh Comp: Pathos. I've never read a book so full of angry people, and I am including "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" in this appraisal. Cornwell must be an extremely unhappy person, who writes to deal with her rage.
Rating:
Summary: Another Good Book
Review: This book was an overall good book. There were a few "harsh" moments. I don't think this outweighed the good of the book. The investigation of the murder was exciting and suspenseful. I do think that reading these books in order will better help with understanding the characters and their actions. I would definitely recommend reading the series of books, Point of Origin being the one written before this.
Rating:
Summary: Another Good Book
Review: This book was an overall good book. There were a few "harsh" moments. I don't think this outweighed the good of the book. The investigation of the murder was exciting and suspenseful. I do think that reading these books in order will better help with understanding the characters and their actions. I would definitely recommend reading the series of books, Point of Origin being the one written before this.
Rating: 
Summary: Poor effort
Review: This is a really poor effort by Patricial Cornwell. If this had been the first book of Cornwell's that I had read, I would have been likely to not read any more books of hers. Instead of a good mystery, we are offered extreme details of office politics and a slow moving plot, with a B-movie climax. The characters are extremely caricaturized here, and there also is a lot of self-righteousness and self-declared vulnerability on the part of Scarpetta. Overall, this one can be skipped.
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