Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful as Usual!!!!
Review: I enjoyed every minute of this book! It is one of those you just can't put down. I encourage everybody to read this and all of her books!
Rating: 
Summary: Deserves stars minus
Review: What a big stink. Definitely give this a miss. Patricia what happened to you?????
Rating: 
Summary: REMAKE
Review: I liked a lot the two or three first books of Patricia Cornwell with this unusual new character, Kay Scarpetta. Pete Marino and Lucy were also well described second roles and the serial killers involved in the stories very disturbing. I was then pretty sure that Patricia Cornwell would become one of the major crime stories writers of the years to come. But with books and years passing by, I realized that I was wrong : Patricia Cornwell is a one-and-only idea writer. And the soup, more and more salted, isn't digestible anymore. So, like in the precedent Cornwell books, we have in BLACK NOTICE a serial killer on the loose, Lucy with a new girl-friend, rain and snow in Virginia ( is there such a season as spring downthere anyway ? ), a bad guy among Scarpetta employees ( this is not a spoiler, it is a recurrent theme in Cornwell's books ), pizzas and soups cooked by Kay, a deficient alarm system, Mercedes, three showers a day for Kay, a computer related subplot and a lot of scientific terms in order to remind us that Scarpetta is a doctor after all. So, if you are interested in discovering what is all the fuss about Patricia Cornwell, I strongly suggest that you read her first books and leave this one for later if you are still curious. A book zone the Return of the Son of the Mummy.
Rating:
Summary: VERY Character Driven ! A Good Read. Lots To Take In.
Review: Warning: This Review Contains SPOILERS of Earlier Scarpetta Novels. This "chapter" in the very interesting and complex life of Kay Scarpetta was one of my favorites. It's a different kind of Scarpetta novel. This one is more about the characters with the "mystery" taking very much the back seat. Lucy is back, and Marino, and they're all sharing in the pain regarding Benton's death. Of all the books, this one moves the characters themselves further than any other (as with "The Body Farm"). It's good to see that Kay is, indeed, capable of depression, that she is NOT a superwoman (no matter what SHE might think). I'd recommend this book to anyone - especially the fan who considers themselves part of Kay's extended family. I only wish Cornwell would publish more Scarepetta mysteries (I'm not thrilled with the "Hornet's Nest" bunch). Also, I think it'd be great if Lucy got her own book! These are all characters we've come to know and love - this book will further that. Regards to all, turtlex
Rating:
Summary: Is Cornwell Getting Tired?
Review: One might think so if "Black Notice" is any indication. The story starts out with an intriguing premise, but it quickly sinks to a predictable litany of Scarpetta's self-absorbed waspishness, Lucy's strange mixture of super-macho behavior and emotional decline, and Marino's anti-intellectual self-carictature. The plot elements and details go from the incredible to the absurd to the impossible. At some point, Ms. Cornwell would appear to have acquired an AOL account, and she now considers herself an expert on computer crime. Case in point: Someone has swiped Scarpetta's AOL password and is posing as her online. Kay moves heaven and Earth to discover the thief's identity, but it never occurs to her simply to change her password! Then, having identified the malefactor, she orders Rose to give her the thief's AOL password, and Kay calmly logs on to his account and reads his E-mail, without the benefit of a court order; such behavior is, of course, blatantly illegal and in real life would probably result in her being fired, prosecuted, and (successfully) sued. But it gets bettter: Once logged on to the thief's account, Kay casually leaves "a plaintext mail message" in his mailbox and signs it with the name of a third party! Nice trick, Kay; want to tell us how you managed that one? "Black Notice" is definitely not up to the earlier Scarpetta novels. Let's hope Kay gets into analysis, Lucy resolves her identity issues, and Marino either has his heart attack or learns to get along with educated people.
Rating:
Summary: Bleckkkkk!
Review: EEE GADZ! What happened? Anyone speak non-sequitur-ese here? This was an angry novel which depicts Kay Scarpetta as an unhappy, nasty, witch with a B. This patchwork does not work. I am disappointed, I truly love this author and the stock characters. Kay Scarpetta needs a vacay.
Rating:
Summary: Not bad at all
Review: I just received a copy of THE LAST PRECINCT and read the jacket cover. It noted that THE LAST PRECINCT is conceptually linked to BLACK NOTICE. So, I went to order a copy of BLACK NOTICE on Amazon.com. I started by reading the readers' reviews of BLACK NOTICE and it sounded like a terrible novel! After finish reading all of them, I looked on my book shelf and found my copy of BLACK NOTICE. Yes, I read it long ago but forgot I did. However, unlike many of the readers, I throughtly enjoyed this work. I've read at least 8 of Cornwell's books and BLACK NOTICE is far from her worst effort. For example, I think BLACK NOTICE is a much better story than HORNET'S NEST. I would be interested in reading more about what others think of BLACK NOTICE compared to Cornwell's "Judy Hammer" series. In deciding if I should take the time to read a book, such comparisons are helpful for me. I hope it's helpful to you.
Rating: 
Summary: I love the whole series
Review: I'm almost 16 and I have read all of her books, I love each one I can never put them down. Anyone who dosen't love this series dosen't know a good book if it kicked them in their pants! I hope Mrs. Cornwell keeps on writing about Kay!
Rating:
Summary: Don't Go There
Review: Don't follow Kay Scarpetta to Paris! You might think a change of scene would do this poor, wrung-out character some good, but it simply places her in contrived relationships and silly situations. Most embarrassing: the Ile-St.-Louis is a tiny, densely populated island in the heart of Paris, a favorite nighttime strolling spot for tourists and locals at all times of year. Many times each evening the lights of tourist cruises on the River Seine rake the isle. Does author Cornwell expect us to believe that a monstrously disfigured character regularly skinny dips off the island without attracting gendarmes, groupies or paparazzi? Cornwell long ago exhausted the emotional potential of her once-compelling heroine, Kay Scarpetta. No doubt it's difficult to let go of a character who has repeatedly taken the author to the top of the best-seller list. But so much death, emotional abuse and physical torture has been inflicted upon medical examiner Scarpetta and everyone she cares about that Cornwell's narratives have become as numb as her heroine. In the early Kay Scarpetta novels, Cornwell gave us needed relief from Scarpetta's hours at the morgue by describing her passion for her home and her garden, her sumptuous Italian cooking, her enjoyment of good food, good liquor, good clothing, good friends, good students. In the recent Scarpetta novels the relentless confrontations with not-believable evil have degenerated into monotony.
Rating:
Summary: Simile and Metaphor Dramatized
Review: For readers who want a well-crafted suspense story, skip this immature, feeble attempt at mystery. In this particular selection, Kay Scarpetta is an emotional cripple as testified to by the rampant adjectives that describe her delicate condition post her lover's death. This novel was grossly disappointing because of its consistent use of similes that test the patience of any well-read reader. Similes are sprinkled everywhere as if someone wrote a prescription for this novel that ordered a certain amount making the work silly, almost laughable. For a professional cornoner, the main character is both unprofessional, consistently a blithering woman and hangs onto a detective, in Marino, who was grabbed out of the 1950's with his wisecracking, emotional outbursts, and immature and unprofessional behavior of a New York City dectective. Sorry, but this novel is just plain a waste of any intelligent reader's time.
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