Black Notice

Rating:
Summary: A DOOZY
Review: Cornwell's name on the cover virtually gaurantees both instant bestseller status and enthusiastic raves from the reviewers, and not without good reason; her narrative is convincing and chilling.

Rating:
Summary: Don't expect Cornwell to get any better than this.
Review: This is by far the best of the Scarpetta mystery novels. It alone deserves to remain in print for any appreciable amount of time. Everything in the series after this is likely to be anti-climatic. But the fact still remains that Scarpetta needs to get a life. She still hasn't learned how to realistically deal with her enemies. Scarpetta is herself paranoid and no wonder: she insists upon setting back and letting things get out of control. Her efforts at hitting back are at best misguided, ineffectual and misplaced.

Rating:
Summary: Cornwell needs to push the narrative.
Review: A few years ago I discovered this series. Mystery mixed with forensic science made for an interesting story. Also you cared about Kay, Pete and Lucy. But something happened to our heroes. Kay became an adulterer. Pete became irrational. Lucy never grew up. And worse, the books started to be more about these characters who I liked less than about the problem to be solved. I just finished Black Notice. I think the whole story could have been told in three chapters and 40 pages. Everything else was personal problems and politics. I love a good mystery. The main characters should be interesting people who you care about but they should always be secondary to the narrative.

Rating:
Summary: After a long dry spell
Review: Kay Scarpetta is back in action. After a long dry spell, this was what I have come to expect. I really enjoyed Potter's Field and it has not been as good since. I was fighting to finish Point of Origin, but this was spicy. Marino and the old gang are back and in full swing. They are characters I have come to enjoy when I sitdown to read.

Rating:
Summary: Scarpetta continues to continue
Review: This is the 10th in the Kay Scarpetta series, and has much of what I have come to expect (exasperation with her mother, fights with her sister, troubles with her niece, coworkers plotting to destroy her credibility, and Pete Marino survives more beer and fatty foods - all Cornwell trademarks). Don't get me wrong - she may repeat certain tones in her stories, but I have grown to enjoy the characters and their familiar relations. Still, the story was less compelling than other Scarpetta novels I have read.

In the beginning, there was the body - a highly ripe one from Europe. Who he is, why he was stashed aboard a freighter, and why he is covered with animal hairs are the questions of the hour. If this doesn't cause enough trouble for chief medical examiner Kay Scarpetta, an incompetent homicide investigator, a treacherous forensic assistant, and an overbearing new deputy chief are willing to lend a hand. To top it all off, her niece Lucy is involved in a dangerous undercover operation about to go down in Miami.

This is the first Scarpetta novel I read (I have since read two others). Although it is a good story, I felt it contained some excessive autopsy details (not gruesome, just a little drawn out). That, an abrupt ending immediately after the climax, and an excess of people trying to undermine Scarpetta without real cause prevents me from rating this a 4.

Rating:
Summary: Where Has All the Mystery Gone?
Review: Predictable if you read her last 3 novels! We are first introducted to the sexual orientation of each character which really clutters up the plot. Was the plot of this novel to lead to a new life for Kay as a New Yorker who will be free to be herself! Notice how all the men in her books get killed off? It is ashame as her previous books were so good and she needs to learn to let Lucy grow up and that we do not care what the character's sexual orientation is as long as it's not necessary to the plot. Definately my last Patricia Cornwell book!

Rating:
Summary: Read me
Review: This was a great book. Cornwell has fantastic way of pulling you in on a slow, yet great, page turner.

Rating:
Summary: A darker Dr. Kay this time around, dark book
Review: In BLACK NOTICE, Patricia Cornwell shows us a darker and colder Dr. Kay Scarpetta. Though Cornwell has always been good at displaying Dr. Scarpetta's inner emotions, this time around, her emotions make for a dark book. Despite the unusually dark nature of this book, it is still worth a read.

As a native son of Virginia, I always look forward to reading a Cornwell novel. This time around, a body has been found in a boat at the Harbour of Richmond. This badly decomposed body leads to the hunt for a French killer calling himself The Werewolf. This hunt is international, but even so, no one is safe. Not even Dr. Kay.

This novel deals with several issues: grief, fowled up drug busts and the effects thereof, violent crimes, homosexuality, and a rare medical condition. If any of these issues bother you,then don't read this novel. If you are an avid Scarpetta fan, or a fan of books of this nature, read BLACK NOTICE.

Rating:
Summary: BETTER THAN SOME OF HER OTHERS!!!!!
Review: This book is better than some of the others in this series. A dead man's body leads Dr. Scarpetta on a dangerous mission. How did he get in the container? What are the hairs from? Could it be something that comes out when the moon is full? Strange twist in this one. I liked it better because Benson is gone. Lucy is still the SUPERWOMAN of all time but she is not in this one as much. As usual Pete Marino is great. I really like him better than anyone else in in the series. On page 83, (paperback) he has mustard on his shirt, his tie is to short and he has on two different color socks. Marino has be demoted by the new Ass't. Chief, a lady named Bray. This is the other plot going on in the story. Bray is after Marino and Scarpetta. Will she get either one? Have to read to find out. I lilked this plot in the book better than the "hairy man" plot. All in all it was fair. Not as good as her very early books.

Rating:
Summary: Return of old friends
Review: I can understand how some people might find this latest Scarpetta read a bit predictable; but that's what endears the reader to a character--it's that predictability and familiarity to a character that keeps fans returning novel after novel. Granted, Marino is still grumpy, Lucy is still bull-headed, and Scarpetta wants to run the show. But that's the way people are in real life; they follow a pattern--they're not ever-changing. Just like that morning cup of coffee we take for granted or the evening in front of the tube with the family, Cornwell's characters have routines and it would be out of character for them to continually change. In this way, Cornwell has hit upon a very human trait. Some among us don't like this in a continued character in a book because it makes them appear stale, but alas, that is the way most of us are. Perhaps that is why some are disappointed--it hits too close to home and they don't want to admit that they, the reader, may be predictable as well.

Cornwell remains true to her characters with attention to details that other writers would overlook. I've read all her books and look forward to Scarpetta's home as if it were my own; I know the kitchen, the office, the bedroom; her office and its various other rooms are etched in my memory. Marino's truck and slovenly abode reflects the gruff man who wants to be the caretaker yet longs to be taken care of. And Lucy is the wreckless child yearning for love and attention.

To change any of these characters would be a disappointment. They are who they are, like them or leave them. As for the story itself, I found the details fascinating as usual and anxiously look forward to the next Scarpetta story. Thanks, Patricia, for an enjoyable read with old friends.