Rating: 
Summary: Chilling!!
Review: Ms. Cornwell wrote the latest with a chilling lack of sentimentality. She remained true to her genre and didn't allow herself to become squeamish about eradicating some intergral characters. As usual Cornwell kept my heart in my throat, my pulse racing and my mind energized. Good book, better ending.
Rating: 
Summary: EXCELLENT
Review: One great book. Entertaining, gripping, and stimulating. Go out and buy it.
Rating: 
Summary: Pretty good, but Not as Good as Earlier Books
Review: While still enjoying the gruesome forensic details, which simultaneously inform and repulse, I'm really getting tired of Lucy's punky personality and the author's agonizing over her relationship with this obnoxious niece, as well as her (Kay's) deep enduring depression over Benton's demise. OK, he was a great guy, but let's get on with the story. Many of us who simply want a a good mystery read are going to forgo future Cornwell works if this trend continues. To be sure, a realistic protaganist must show some human frailty but, it seems to me, something is lost when a protagonist (who deals with ruthless, psychotic antagonists) is in a prolonged state of emotional or psychological instability. If the heroine is psychologically or emotionally distressed, the reader, rather than focusing on the sleuthing and the unfolding of the story, is forced to be concerned with the heroine's fragile state of mind and its effect on her various human relationships, which may be of little interest to many readers.I like the portrayal of the Marino and other characters in Cornwell's books, and share in the reading public's general plaudits for her work. Just go a bit lighter on the subjective, introspective morbid side of Kay's personality (she may be in the wrong proffession), and please knock off Lucy in a Miami drug-bust gone wrong. Marino is a great character, if a bit over done.
Rating: 
Summary: very vague werevolftale
Review: After writing a couple of really good books, PC started to massproduce kay scarpetta mysteries. This is really a massproduct without a single unique or original idea, and only based on the relations between the different characters of the stories. The characters also have become boring as their personalities are only getting some more details without any deeper contents. absolute rubbish
Rating:
Summary: Good good book
Review: What was wrong with this book? Only one thing I don't like about her books is she constantly covers the past of all of her characters in almost every book. It's probably good for new readers, but for readers who read her since the beginnng, it gets a little annoying. I thought this was a very cool story.From the start this book just keeps on gaining momentum in the classic Scarpetta tradition. The book opens with a body found in a shipping cargo box on the docks. Then Scarpetta's neice, Lucy, is involved in misshap down in Florida when one of her undercover operations goes bad. In her office, her staff members keep complaining of missing items, wierd e-mails from her, and her not getting back with people. And with Christmas around the corner, thoughts of Benton are stil fresh in her mind. To top it all off, there is a new Chief in town, Diane Bray, and she is looking to get rid of Scarpetta after she has already demoted Pete Marino from a detective. With the murders in Richmond piling up, she gets summoned overseas to discover the same MO over there. Alot of stuff going on at the same time that eventually leads up to alot of surprises and an exiting ending that doesn't really end as you will find out when you buy "The Last Precinct". This is basically a 2 part story (so far as I know right now). If you miss out by not reading this, you are really missing out.
Rating:
Summary: Tired of Depressing Characters
Review: 75% of the way through this book and I don't even care if I finish it. I keep giving the series one more chance but I fear this will be the last one I try to slog through. With each book the tone has become more and more one of dysfunctional Kay and her dysfunctional family/friends. Not one single character outside of Kay's secretary, Rose, has any redeeming qualities or character qualities that make me give a darn whether they survive or even exist. Lucy's the worst, but even Kay and Mariono are repulsive in this book. Given the progression history of the story line, I hate to imagine how down and depressive the final story of the series will be. Kay will be a bitter old woman, Lucy will have killed herself and Marino will have died from clogged arteries or lung cancer. Ugh! I can read the daily newspapers for this kind of "literature."
Rating:
Summary: Cornwell back on track!!!!
Review: I have heard mixed reviews about this book, but i have to say that this is definatly one of Miss Cornwell's better works. Cornwell herself claims on her website that this is her best book to date. The book moves at a quicker pace than i was expecting, and the killer in this book is definatly one of her most interesting villans, right up there with Temple Gault and Carrie Grethen. I enjoyed this book considerably. It is good to see how much Scarpetta has changed since the first book, as well as Lucy and Marino. Some people argue that that the book fall short in the ending, if you other reading The Last Precinct then you will find the story continues and the loose ends are fixed. There was one problem i found in this book, Scarpetta says Dr. Anna Zenner's name as Dr. Anna Zimmer. In the previous books her last name is Zenner btu all of a sudden it is Zimmer. She goes back to calling her Zenner in The Last Precinct. Lazy editors! But overall Scarpetta fans will enjoy this outing.
Rating:
Summary: Don't Bother
Review: Patricia Cornwell's books, while not great literature, are still somewhat enjoyable to me. Not so with this one. The plot is absurd, the characters anoying, and the ending very abrupt. Do yourself a favor and buy one of her other stories.
Rating:
Summary: Suspense unlimited.
Review: I could not wait until I was able to purchase Black Notice. All of P. Cornwall's books have their twists and turns, but I feel she outdid herself in Black Notice. The suspense was at times almost unbearable. I wanted to skip past descriptive words, or turn the page before I was finished to find out immediately what had occurred. You could taste her fear, anxiety and worry. One must admire Scarpetta's spirit, her ability to conquer her fear, to think logically, and stay focused in spite of her entire world and career seemly about to crumble. I ended up crying with her, worrying with her and ultimately surviving despite of her great loss. Waiting for the next book in the Scarpetta series!
Rating:
Summary: What Do You People Want?
Review: First off, I have always enjoyed Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta series. One for the humanizing that she does to her characters. They are not perfect and have true emotions for what they have been through. The author is not afraid to let her characters change and grow or even fight change. Two the excellent writing and plot. Ms. Cornwell has earned all the awards for writing that she has gotten for this series. She has never let me down in the category. Three, I love the way the author moves from one book to the next. Yes, Ms. Cornwell is cruel and unusual in the way she will leave a reader hanging at the end of a book. Kind of like life too. Sometimes life doesn't have a complete "ending". Sometimes it will take another whole book to conclude the story. You have to admit that to pick up a 1200 plus page book to read would be defeating. And you would have to be a pretty strong person just to get it home, let alone hold it to read. It is also fun to wait a year to find out how the story ends. In Black Notice, Patricia Cornwell is in top form as a writer. I couldn't put the book down, so compelling was the story line and characters. And I want to thank Ms. Cornwell for killing Diane Bray, I've had a few bosses that I wished would go away too. I wanted to cheer, but thanks to the author's writing I was held back by the emotions that Kay was feeling. So, no this will NOT be my last Kay Scarpetta novel. I've already started The Last Precinct, and it is turning into a wonderful book too. And I'm sure that Ms. Cornwell will hold true to her readers and leave us hanging for another year about something. Keep them coming Ms. Cornwell!
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