Black Notice

Rating:
Summary: Disappointment
Review: I was very excited to start reading Black Notice, but as once I started I was very disappointed with it. I usually love all of Patricia Cornwell's books. This book had potential to be a great book but it went down hill with the more you read. The ended was a major disappointment.

Rating:
Summary: Tired material
Review: It seems as if the author has gotten lazy over the last few Scarpetta books. The characters have become really annoying. This book was not enjoyable. Disappointing since the early books were so good.

Rating:
Summary: Another perfunctory effort from Patricia Cornwell.
Review: This is the last Cornwell book that I will buy. Her last few Scarpetta novels have been heavy on the personal angst of her continuing characters, and VERY light on the mystery and suspense. If I want to read about lost loves, dysfunctional family relationships and May/December romances I will buy a Jackie Collins or Danielle Steele novel. Out of 315 pages, about 200 plus are devoted to Kay and all her troubled relationships, and less than 100 to the "loup garou". The ending is so predictable and perfunctory, I had to force myself to read the last 15 pages. For those of you who like to read suspense novels featuring a continuous character, I recommend John Sandford or Dennis Lehayne. They both are still putting the suspense aspect of their novels first, instead of dwelling on the histrionics of annoying characters, like Ms. Cornwell. I'm sorry Kay, but this is it for me.

Rating:
Summary: good but not her best
Review: This much awaited edition of the Kay Scarpetta series was a little farfetched but still worth the time & energy to read. I couldn't put it down like all of her other books. The ending was a bit forced and leaves you wishing for a more developed and more plausible ending. Hopefully the characters will all get it together after this novel. They are all still grieving over Benton. It's time to move on. Obviously Kay did! Now it's time for Marino & Lucy to do the same. Hopefully the next book will find the three doing less bickering and more crime fighting!

Rating:
Summary: O.K. but not up to the usual standards...
Review: Unfortunately for fans of the Kay Scarpetta novels, these stories have fallen into a cookbook kind of production. I felt I could predict everything that was going to happen,i.e. Dr. Scarpetta would complain about her horrible life, Marino would eat and drink too much, and Lucy would rebel in some way. Knocking off Benton in the last book was a good twist, I would just like to see a little more growth and unexpected turns for these familiar characters in subsequent novels.

Rating:
Summary: Better than her previous three books but could be better
Review: Although this was a lot better than her last three books inplaces it was very over-the-top and in-your-face. A bit of subtly insome areas would be nice!! It also reads a lot like a re-hash of her earlier books. More details about the killer would have been interesting. Think I'll stick to Dick Francis, Lillian Jackson Braun and Mercedes Lackey from now on!!!

Rating:
Summary: Once again Patricia has done it!
Review: I have read all of Patricia's books and this one lives up to the others in the Scarpeta series...I love watching the personalities of Kay, Lucy and Marino emerge. In this book we get to see a side of Kay and Lucy that has yet to be seen...the not-so-in-control side. I loved it...Patricia can't write them quickly enough to suit me!

Rating:
Summary: As soon as I finished it, I wanted to pick up the sequel
Review: This book was fabulous. Scarpetta was so human, not a super woman. I feel better now that Benton has been replaced, at least for a little while. I was totally crushed when Patricia got rid of him last year. I didn't think I would be able to continue reading her books. Marino was his obnoxious self - his character was even better than its been before. I enjoyed him. Talley was a wonderful, delicious addition!

Rating:
Summary: Get Back To Crime Solving
Review: I have read all of the Scarpetta books and always eagerly await the next one. I hope with Black Notice we are finished with the grieving, bickering and being bitchy. Black Notice was okay but I found myself skipping the parts where these characters were downright mean to each other. For me these characters are becoming unlikeable and out of control. The book was riveting when covering the crime material but the verbal abuse these people heaped on each other got real old, real fast. Yes these people have lives outside the crime labs but those lives have become the all consuming focus of the last couple of books. Cornwell needs to get Scarpetta and company back to solving crimes, and maybe lighten up their personalities a bit in the process.

Rating:
Summary: Very disappointing, written in an absent minded way.
Review: As a fan of Patricia Cornwel, Black Notice was a great disppointment.It was an ordeal to continue reading this book, hoping it would get better. The dialogue is disjointed and the plot momentum is non-existent. The character development relies on heavy knowledge of Cornwell's past books and her characters do not grow in any meaningful way,they actually de-volve instead of evolve. The author's previous Scarpetta book and her most recent are so absent mindedly written that I assume she has lost interest in this character and is ready to move on. The book ends abruptly and leaves the reader hanging and dissatisfied. The international flavor and romantic interest is forced and comes into the book as an after thought.Cornwell's best Scarpetta novels are the early ones and end with "From Potters Field".