Rating: 
Summary: puzzled
Review: Could not figure out the opening letter from roasted lover. How did he know his future? (does this depend on previous novels--this is the first one for me). Meant to ask P. C. website this but forgot.
Rating: 
Summary: Bought this in the airport..should've stuck with USA Today
Review: The willing suspension of disbelief is something with which I'm fairly generous when it comes to recreational reading. But not here. Irrational dialogue and behavior. Scarpetta and Marino take turns acting as if they in need of a serious medication regimen. The plot lacks credibility. When will this series have a strong male character? The ending....well, was there really an ending or did the author get as tired writing this stuff as I did reading it? Don't bother.
Rating:
Summary: Not worth an autopsy
Review: Devoted Cornwell fans will hate this, but I don't care much. Patricia Cornwell writes thrillers to a formula and Black Notice reads as though she is writing without thinking. You know, been there done this so many times you don't have to think any more. Her clinical descriptions of a coroner's work are meticulous and for me, the best part of the book. However generally, Cornwell's use of language is thoroughly pedestrian, the descriptions of Dr Kay Scarpetta's grief over her lost lover overwrought, clumsily written and they slow down the action. By the end of the book I couldn't have cared less who the murderer was. My first Patricia Cornwell read - and my last. Not worth an autopsy.
Rating: 
Summary: Tough times for Kay Scarpetta and company
Review: It's not bad enough that forensic pathologist Scarpetta is in mourning over the death of her FBI agent boyfriend--just about everybody is paying some tough dues in this one. Her brilliant but troubled niece Lucy (also an FBI agent) was the one who blew away the guy's killer. Which puts her on a Charles Bronson trip where her partner gets shot. Scarpetta's irascible Sipowicz-clone detective friend Marino has gotten on the wrong side of his new deputy chief (an arrogant beauty with the soul of "Homicide's" Colonel Barnfather) and gotten himself "flopped back in the bag" (police parlance for punitive return to uniformed duty). And if that's not bad enough, Scarpetta's latest homicide case has been found in a container-ship module wearing the epitaph "bye-bye werewolf" in French. Earlier books in the Scarpetta series hint at a somewhat dysfunctional off-the-job life, but I've always seen her as successfully rising above them. In this book, several problems seem to be coming to a head at once, leaving Scarpetta to expend nearly as much effort combatting that side of her life as she spends on her cases. It strikes me that Cornwell is trying to do a Scott Turow noir/ psych number here, and I see this as a none-too-welcome departure from a formula that's worked for her and her heroine in the past.
Rating: 
Summary: Not One of Cornwell's Best
Review: It's December in Richmond when a cargo ship is found to have the decomposing body of a stowaway on board, in a locked container. Chief Medical Examiner, Kay Scarpetta is called to the scene and personally conducts the autopsy finding a strange tatoo and blond animal-like hairs covering the body. A few days later, the same peculiar hair is found on a murdered store clerk. So begins Black Notice, Ms Cornwell's tenth Scarpetta mystery/thriller. This time, Kay follows the clues from Richmond to Interpol headquarters, Paris and back home again, to solve the case, in the deaths of these two unrelated people. But that's not all...she's having a personal crisis over the death of her lover, Benton Wesley, her niece Lucy is having all kinds of personal and work related problems and a new deputy chief is wreaking havoc with Kay's professional life. Patricia Cornwell has written a novel chock full of sometimes confusing story lines that finally come together for an unfortunately weak and predictable ending. The writing is tense and at times very compelling, but the story often gets bogged down in detail and seems more far-fetched than realistic or riveting. And her characters have become one dimensional, difficult to care about and uninteresting. All in all, not one of Ms Cornwell's best efforts. If you are new to this series, start with her terrific earlier books, Postmortem or Body of Evidence. If you're a Kay Scarpetta fan, do yourself a favor and skip this one.
Rating:
Summary: I give up!
Review: I have been a fan of the Scarpetta novels for years and have read every one. Unfortunately, this one will probably be my last. I couldn't even fight my way through this one. I read over 100 pages of this thing, and nothing happened. I think this character has run its course. It's time to do something else.
Rating:
Summary: Predictable
Review: Even more unbelievable than the last. How has the earth managed to continue life as we know it before Kay and Lucy? PLEEEZ! Lucy is way too smart and pretty and computer-whizzed, blah blah blah. Oh and by the way, a lesbian. What is that about? I swore I wouldn't read another one of her books. She should have quit after the third - first three were very good. But they just get so outlandish and silly. Inane. Who cares? No more Cornwall for me - I swear.
Rating:
Summary: Corpses Aren't the Only Folks Who Need to Chill
Review: Apparently Patricia Cornwell has never met a character she actually liked. Even her protagonists are irrasible and paranoid to the point that they can't get along with each other for more than five minutes without blowing up, storming out or otherwise behaving like emotionally stunted two-year-olds. It's unusual to enjoy a mystery and its solution without experiencing the slightest affinity for the people involved, but that's the way I feel reading Cornwell's books. Given the choice of hanging out with the good doctor, Superniece, and their friends or the unfortunate victims in the morgue, I'd choose the latter; at least they know how to stay calm and cool under pressure.
Rating:
Summary: Full of holes and threads that peter out.
Review: The main story line doesn't even start until halfway through the book. There are some half-hearted attempts to tie everything together, but they don't really work.And what's with the niece and her relationship? Its as though Cornwall feels she has some obligation to include a dysfunctional lesbian relationship. WHY?? Its not as though the book's about homosexuality, and its not as though there is an integral character who just happens to be a lesbian. Its pointless. And Lucy is SO unsympathetic. I guess the worse part is that its not really a mystery. There are no clues that would allow the reader to figure anything out. Everything is resolved abruptly. Scarpetta doesn't figure anything out.
Rating:
Summary: Better than the reviews led me to believe
Review: I have read all of the Scarpetta series and many other books that Cornwell has written. I am a writer of murder mysteries myself and hope that I have her talent. Prior to buying 'Black Notice' I thought hard about it as I was a bit hesistant based on the reviews of other customers. Now after having read it twice I believe that yes there was some deterioration of the plot, but it seemed only a momentary flicker before she got right back on track. I won't disclose the ending, but contrary to what I had been led to think by other readers, it does come to a believable and complete conclusion. Yes some of her earlier books in this series were better, but the Scarpetta character as well as Lucy are true to form.
|
