From Potter's Field

Rating:
Summary: Patricia Cornwell did it again!
Review: Patricia Cornwell did it again. This is the best of hers that I have read so far. It only took me two days to read the entire book, which usually says a lot for me.

It will be a bit hard to really say much about the story without giving anything away, but let's just say Temple Gault is at it again and he is worse than you have ever imagined. If you do not know who Temple Gault is, he is a serial killer that was introduced in the last two books, Cruel and Unusual and The Body Farm. You will want to read those before you jump into From Potter's Field.

Rating:
Summary: Where's the movie?
Review: I'm only writing this to get some feedback about the movie! Will someone please post some information about the movie that was supposed to be based on this novel?! The book was written back in, what, '96 or something? Where's the movie??? Well, since this an editorial on the book-I thought it was OK-not my favorite Cornwell novel. I recommend "All That Remains". If anyone watched the movie "Don't Say a Word" with Michael Douglas you might get suspicious like I did. When they go to the cemetery at the end of the movie it's called-"Potter's Field". I was really, really confused. I'm sure there is no connection but to be on the safe side, will someone please post SOME information on the book-supposed-to-be-turned-into-movie?? Thanks.

Rating:
Summary: Not very much depth or substance to this one
Review:

The house we stayed in for New Years had a ton of books on its shelves and since it was raining a lot we had plenty of time to read. I picked up this book New Years Eve and finished it New Year's Day. I chose it for a couple of reasons, first off I had just finished a historical book and it was time for something light and I had recently seen a 20/20 episode where Patricia Cornwell claimed to have solved the identity of Jack the Ripper. So I was intrigued. I like mystery and thrillers and I knew she had written a lot of books in the genre and my wife had read several of hers and liked them. First off I must say that Patricia was stretching the word per page ratio with this book. I was reading the hard cover edition and the margins were very wide and each paged ended like 3 inches from the bottom with some silly footer taking up a lot of space. Secondly and partially as a consequence it was a very fast read. Finally I would not recommend this book, but it was entertaining in some regards. I don't know about any of her other novel's (I think I will check out one more of her's as a fair shake, in particular there was one book that one a bunch of awards one year that looks promising) but I found this to be a weak example of the genre. Lets face it, in any genre there are real works of literature that are the top of that particular genre, say Tolkien in fantasy, I am not sure what is the supreme literary example of mysteries but whatever it may be this was a bland consume. I didn't really care for it much. It is basically your typical psycho serial killer vs. the "law enforcement" individual. In this case Cornwell's hero is a heroine, Kay Scarpetta and Chief Medical Examiner of Virginia, for which I think she has earned a lot of interest. However for a thriller of this type I enjoy James Patterson's Alex Cross series much better.

Rating:
Summary: The devil in the detail
Review: I'm not a fan of the crime writing genre, so I require more than some blood and guts and a few nasty frights to make me speak highly of a crime novel. Unfortunately, I cannot speak highly of From Potter's Field.

I know more about dogs than I do about forensic medicine, so it makes me suspicious of the novel's factual integrity when I read that a murderer's eyes are "as pale blue as a malamute's", when in fact (according to the Alaskan Malamute Club of America), a malamute's eyes MUST be brown, never blue.

It also made me laugh to think that all the crime agencies (and the media!!) in the USA would be completely ignorant regarding the closest relatives of the country's highest profile serial killer. Although if the good guys had known some basic details about the killer's family tree, Dr Kay would have been left twiddling her thumbs, so I suppose I should quit complaining.

Well, I read the book right through to the end, and it kept me amused, so I have to give it one star.

Rating:
Summary: Suspenseful
Review: I think that this is one of Ms. Cornwell's most suspenseful books to date, and I couldn't put it down until I'd finished it. Old enemies make life difficult for Kay as she scrambles to find the killer's location.

Rating:
Summary: So much potential
Review: This book had so much potential. Cornwell crafted a great plot with this one. I agree with an earlier reviewer that there were several things that were unrealistic in this one. However, the plot was so good and the action was pretty tense, so I was willing to overlook those details.

I was honestly enjoying the book. Then I came to the ending. I had read the Scarpetta series in order from Postmortem to this one. Her serial killer Gault appears in several of the prior books, and the Scarpetta vs. Gualt finale happens here. I won't give it away, but let me say I was so disappointed that I quit reading the series.

The poor ending of this book, combined with the unrealistic events and general lack of research by the author in all her books has made me decide not to read anymore from Cornwell. With books I haven't read by better authors like DeMille, Deaver, Connelly, and Crais I don't want to waste my time with below average books.

Rating:
Summary: Good Enough
Review: I have read almost all of Patricia Cornwell's series with Kay Scarpetta and if you liked her other books, you will probably enjoy this book as well. It has the same feel as the others except I find the adultery that Kay continues to commit inconsistent with her strict sense of right and wrong. Marino is always a great character you can easily picture in your mind and I found the scene with the police at the morgue particularly good. The ending was a bit of a let down. However, I'm still hooked and will continue to read her books.

Rating:
Summary: No characters, no plot
Review: This depressingly inept novel is devoid of interesting characters and the plot is so ludicrous that only curiosity about how much worse it can get keeps one reading to the end. And Cornwell does not disappoint--it gets worse and worse and worse, until a conclusion that is as contrived and pointless as any in fiction. Another reviewer on Amazon called this book drivel, but that was perhaps too kind an assessment. This is the lamest book I have ever read.

Each character is assigned one trait--Marino is bigoted, Lucy is angry, Benton is beleaguered--with the exception of the star of the show, Kay Scarpetta, who seems to have drawn two traits--stupidity and a major shopping addiction (dropping brand names is her hobby).

A brief list of plot sillinesses: can you believe that the FBI would not know the most basic facts about "the nation's most wanted serial killer"--that he has a twin sister and a famous uncle?; can you believe that the FBI would set up an elaborate trap using NYC subways because they could not risk a shootout? (why not just arrest him as he leaves his apartment building, once they have found that?); can you believe that a trained law enforcement person would leave her gun lying around as many times as the dimwit heroine does in this book?

Worse than this are the many things that Cornwell throws in that end up having no role in the book--a sick mother in Florida, a subplot abpout her sidekick's love life, her niece's lesbian romances.

This book is all filler, no substance. They must be paying her by the word. The real mystery is why Cornwell has recidivist readers.

Rating:
Summary: The first, and probably last, PC novel I ever read...
Review: I borrowed this book from a co worker while I was abroad, and regreted it ever since, because it was even worse than having nothing to read at all... There were 2 things that ruined my enjoyment of this book:

1) the main reason was that the plot, and Kay's actions, were totally illogical - someone who is afraid of a murderer stalking her would be more careful than Kay was, for instance... Unlike what I'd expect from a professional dective, Kay Scarfetta doesn't use logic but follows her intuitions, which don't seem to be based on anything but her vague feelings that it must be saw, and each and every one of those feelings turn out to be true... That doesn't make the book very believavle...

2) when an author writes a more than one novel wuth the same main character, you could casually pick up of of the books in the middle of the 'series', or even the last book of it, and have a pretty good idea of what's going on, even though you'd have a much broader outlook of things if you read the previous books in the series. But not only does PC use Kay Scarffeta as her main character in numerous books, but she brings Temple Brooks Gault, the villain, back from the past, without giving a thorough background of his and Kay's history, just a little line saying Gault has some things to resent about the detective... And so on... This is just one examples of past characters and occurances that are mentioned in this book that occured or were introduced in the past, and there are so many of them that it really makes the book very vague and gives you a feeling you don't understand even half of it without having read the previous books. This might be OK for fans of the author but it doesn't make casual readers, like me, want to research enough to get the prior books and read them....

Rating:
Summary: Temple Brooks Gault's Surprise
Review: If you enjoy medical thrillers, you will enjoy this book. It is evident that Cornwell does her research on her subject & you gain useful information as you read. I would like to suggest another author, Echo Heron, & her medical thriller books such as Pulse, Panic, Paradox, Mercy, & Fatal Diagnosis. Just as Cornwell has Dr Kay Scarpetta, Heron pens the Adele Monsarrat series.