Rating: 
Summary: Grime & Punishment
Review: A lot can be said making it all seem real, or based on elements that mirror the culture. I guess that's one way to describe absorption and recycling of this and that from here and there in fact and fiction. In Patterson's beautiful hometown San Francisco (unlike drab, uninteresting fictional(?) Steelton), real life embattled Black hero Mayor Willie Brown was and is embroiled in a conflict to save 3Com Park's Bayview Stadium project, but, unlike Patterson's mayor in the story, aligned on the "pro" side against some elements which would unseat SF from its status as a world class city. WE'LL MEET AGAIN's Molly Lasch was the accused in the murder of an ex. Patterson's Stella faces crisis growing out of the killing of one of her ex-squeezes. "Similar, but not?" Except for complexion and branch of public service Dark Lady Marz could be a clone of the less pedestrian Kay Scarpetta of BLACK NOTICE and previous installments. Even components clearly of Patterson's creation are burdened with what could pass for - as it says, "the hard edge of reality." It's like reading a documentary. The best fiction shrouds within a gossamer semi-reality that even intrudes to the level of fantasy once credibility is expendable. A prime case of the latter is the masterpiece FIELD OF DREAMS. A marginal example is DANCES WITH WOLVES, wherein a person's imagination indulges the unlikely behavior and logic of the animals. An in-between is A CAT'S FULL NINE, that challenges your grasp of what is chance/coincidence and how much is just beyond touch and just within the charms and palls of ancient forces that impel - if not compel - the perameters of an explosive and exquisite tale. Even a rough jolt like HANNIBAL communicates implicitly the presence of a tongue in a cheek back there somewhere. A person reads for escape. Escape to a different level of reality - even if it's a made up one - doesn't make it.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Patterson's best
Review: I have always though Richard North Patterson was an underrated writer. He's a bestseller, true enough, but not exactly in the same league as Grisham. I find his books to be tauter, grittier and with more believable character development than Grisham's often lazy prose. Not all Patterson's books are equal, however. DARK LADY is by no means terrible, and fans of Patterson's will be reasonably satisfied. But the plot is, frankly, just a bit too much. So MUCH corruption is exposed in the fictional city of Steelton that it becomes unbelievable. True, a major city might have one or two major political figures who are corrupt, but in this book EVERYONE is corrupt. The question becomes HOW, not WHO? It just gets to be too much like a soap opera. And towards the end, so much hell has broken loose that Patterson simply can't make the behavior of the characters believable. It's simply TOO MUCH. I would say the first 75% of the book is good fun. 100% of the book is fast-paced. It's just that Patterson works too hard to shock the reader, I think. The plot is thick enough already without the overblown help. I therefore cannot recommend this book for beginners in Patterson, because it might put them off some of his better books like DEGREE OF GUILT or EYES OF THE CHILD.
Rating:
Summary: Just promotes seterotypes !
Review: I read Silent Witness by JNP and loved it so I moved on to this one. Boy what a waste of my time. The story moved S L O W. First of all it gives the impression that the construction industry is just ripe with scandels and corruption. I work for one of the oldest land developers in the nation and am here to tell you that is just not true. It seems to be the reputation that the industy has gotten over time but it is not the norm. Another thing I was offened by was that MBEs just show up to collect a paycheck and not to work - once again FALSE.
I think the book does more to promote sterotypes than to entertain.
Rating: 
Summary: Politics and Murder Hand and Hand Together
Review: In Steelton on the shores of Lake Erie controversy swirls around a $275 million taxpayer-funded baseball stadium dubbed Steelton 2000. The project is the brainchild of Mayor Tom Krajek, who's fighting for his political life in a hotly contested Democratic primary. Supporters believe Steelton 2000 is the city's last hope for urban renewal and employment. Opponents believe the stadium is a huge misappropriation of tax dollars.
Running against Krajek is Erie County prosecutor Arthur Bright. And in the middle is Bright's protégé, assistant prosecutor Stella Marz, whose relentless prosecution style has earned her the nickname the "Dark Lady" from defense lawyers. Now she plans to run for Erie County prosecutor if her boss is elected mayor. But a series of unexpected murders disrupt everyone's political goals and as Stella investigates, it becomes impossible to tell who she can trust.
Rating: 
Summary: The maestro has done it againn-great thriller
Review: In the late nineteenth century, Steelton, located where the Onondaga flows into Lake Erie, was a booming factory town that hosted the region's top steel manufacturing industry. Today, the steel industry is gone and the city remains depressed even though some urban improvement has occurred. A debate has broken out among the politicians over whether to construct a modern baseball park for the Steelton Blues, whose franchise in the city is nearing the century mark. Mayor Krajek sees the stadium as something good for the community, especially minority workers. His opponent in the mayoral race, Arthur Bright, condemns the project as a waste of public funds needed elsewhere. However, the controversy on Steelton 2000 turns ugly. The supervisor of the project Tommy Fielding of the Hall Development Company and a Mafia lawyer influential in the project Jack Novak are found dead. Though Jack was once her lover, Assistant County Prosecutor Stella Marz leads the investigation that she thinks should be considered two homicides. Stella and the police weed through layers of deception, corruption, and avarice trying to resolve the double mystery. DARK LADY is Richard North Patterson's best tale to date as he paints a vivid yet depressing picture of a midwest city. The story line is entertaining as the driven Stella does everything to uncover the truth. Stella's obsession feels genuine and the support cast augments the tale by making Steelton seem like a real American city. The plot suffers from the real success stories of Jacobs Field and Cameron Yards, and from a not-to-believe villain. Still, fans will feel the passions as a debate occurs when a city decides whether to construct a new stadium. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: Overlong for its substance
Review: Mr Patterson -a normally reliable and entertaining writer -has seemingly entered a period of persiflage and ponderousness if this novel is any guide as to his future literary development .A basically routine story of political intrigue and corruption is here larded over with excess of detail and a moralistic sententiousness that makes reading it a wearisome experience .
The eponymous heroine is Stella Marz , a prosecuting attorney in the fictitious town of Steelton ,once a prosperouus town founded on heavy industry ,now in recession and split on ethnic grounds .
When her ex lover ,Narcotics cop Jack Novack is found dead in bizarre circumstances suggestive of deviant sexual practices ,it seets in train a series of events that threaten to impact on the Majoral race and to potentially sabotage her chances of becoming City Prosecutor .The current ,white ,Major is Krajek whose grand regeneration scheme for the city encompasses a new baseball stadium and he is oppoosed by Stella's boss the balck Prosecutor Arthur Bright .The battle over the stadium project is the key to the book
and more killings are on the way before the book is over
The story is too thin to justify the 500 plus page length but it does have ,in Stella an interesting a complex heroine , one by no means wholly likeable .She is driven to seek out her roots within thje Polish community from which she sprang and this gives her a touch of humanity that she would otherwise lack
The portait of industrial decline and the inexorable split of the community between reacial groups is pessiimistic .
Please Mr Patterson -keep it shorter next time around .
Rating:
Summary: Lack of action
Review: Mr. Patterson spends far too much time developing the characters, not enough chasing clues, suspects, interviewing.
Rating:
Summary: Dense thriller
Review: On the whole, I liked it; the writing's good, the heroine's real, with what read like real problems, ambitions, and moral dilemmas. The plot is the dense part; almost too many main characters, although again they're mostly well enough depicted. The true villan (as opposed to the venal and otherwise corrupt) is however disappointingly glossed over, it seems to me. The conclusion is satisfactory; certainly not a onventional "happy" ending. and the story's about the right length. It's a low 4, but a 4 nonetheless...
Rating:
Summary: Politics, Murder, and Strange Bedfellows
Review: Richard North Patterson's latest, Dark Lady, is a well-crafted lawyer-cop-political tale which will hold your interest. The protagonist is Stella Marz, a single, 38-year old Assistant County Prosecutor who wants not to be the assistant. But that means she would have to be the first woman elected to the job. Her boss is running for mayor, but if he is elected will he back her or his long-time friend and political ally in the special election? The political environment in this rust-belt metropolis is complex, with the electorate fairly evenly split between African-American and the children of Central European immigrants. Stella is a tough, competent prosecutor who seldom loses and whose dedication and tough stance has earner her the sobriquet of "Dark Lady." Patterson deftly brings out Stella's background and its effect on her current viewpoint. A reader comes to know her and the difficulties she surmounted to reach what might have become the critical point in both her career and her life. Dark Lady may not be a great book, but it is a story well told.
Rating:
Summary: The Dark Lady is One Tough Cookie
Review: Steelton is a fictional American Midwest town on the shores of Lake Erie, where the proposed construction of a two hundred and seventy-five million dollar baseball stadium is the background for a political battle. Mayor Tom Krajek hails the proposal as the hallmark of a new era of urban renewal. The Prosecuter of Erie County, Arthur Bright, calls it a boondoggle, saying the money would be better spent elsewhere. Bright's ally in his attempt to unseat the mayor is his protégé, Stella Marz, dubbed the "Dark Lady" by defence lawyers, who don't take kindly to her aggressive style and relentless pursuit of convictions. Stella's latched onto Bright's coattails, so she has a real interest in his political future. Things turn nasty when Tommy Fielding, the project manager of the stadium, is found dead with a hooker, both of an apparant heroin overdose. However Chief Detective Nathaniel Dance suspects more than just foul play, particularly when Stella's ex-lover and Bright supporter Jack Novak is also found dead, castrated and hanging in his closet, dressed in a garter belt and stockings. It's of no small significance that Jack was a Mob lawyer. Though her relationship with Novak is long over, Stella can't help but feel the collision of her personal and professional lives at the crime scene. But she hangs tough, partly because it's her nature, but also because she has is a political animal. She wants to be the first woman prosecutor of Erie County, after all. And for her to reach that goal, Arthur Bright has to win the Democratic primary against incumbent Mayor Thomas Krajek. Is there a connection between the Fielding and Novak murders? Where does the stadium construction belong in all of this? Can Stella draw the threads together? In answering these questions you'll find that you have the makings of a good thriller, but wait, there's more, add a some greed and corruption, a whole lot of double-dealing and back-stabbing and you've added the fixings of a blockbuster.
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