Hornet's Nest

Rating:
Summary: Did she really write this?
Review: I was very disappointed with the book. No character that wasn't a clique. Not up to her usual standard at all. Pretty awful.

Rating:
Summary: Where, oh where is Kay Scarpetta?
Review: The mystery was nonexistent, the killings were so deeply buried that they were almost nonexistent and I finally wondered what is the point of this book? I have enjoyed her other books, but this was pointless, Hammer was the best part of the book and her life. The ending just ended like oh well, I've written over 250 pages let's just quit, I'm bored with it all!

Rating:
Summary: Terrible disappointment
Review: Please return to your usual wonderful style of writing. I will never buy another book with these characters.

Rating:
Summary: Great characters, but unbelieveable thread
Review: I read Patricia Corwell's books because she writes about strong female characters. She wonderfully describes the powers that draw people together. I like the parallels she draws between the chief and her husband and the deputy chief and the newspaper reporter. But the thread she uses to walk the reader through the book -- the police reporter who works as a volunteer police officer, especially with the newspaper's permission -- just does not hold water. Ms. Cornwell, who takes credit as being a newspaper reporter, should know better. No large or small newspaper will allow their police reporter to be a volunteer cop and to collect news stories while being a volunteer cop. (If Ms. Cornwell can prove me wrong, please do.) This creates a conflict of interest, which begs the question: Does the reporter work for the police or does the cop work for the newspaper. What you have is a reporter who short changes his newspaper and its readership. What you have is a cop who his co-workers and the public cannot trust to protect them. Okay, she tried to show the conflict, but allowed the news editor and police chief to ignore the conflict. But I'm not all too sure this was important to the story. I just wish she picked a more realistic thread to take me through the story.

Rating:
Summary: Insipid.
Review: I wanted to like this book. But you really can not. It is meandering, and self-aggrandizing to the gender and age group of the author. Meaningless and a waste of time. Why did the author allow this book to get published in view of her accomplishments?

Rating:
Summary: I liked it.
Review: I read the rest of the comments. I still liked the book. I "read" the book through Books on Tape and hope Ms Cornwell continues with the likeable characters in this first with a new central figure.

Rating:
Summary: Virginia West is great even if she does smoke.
Review: I don't have a problem with Cornwell introducing new characters -- I loved Virginia West and hope she appears in more books. But overall the story is bland and tedious, nothing much happens except everyone seems to spend a lot of time eating in diners and fast food places. This in contrast to the luscious restaurant and cooking scenes of the Scarpetta books where the food always sounds like something you'd actually enjoy eating. I also got very tired of Cornwell's constant use of size, shape and athetic prowess as valid indicators not only of an individual's personality but also of his/her value to society. But worst of all is what Cornwell does to Andy Brazil, one of her main characters, whom she initially describes as a wonderful person, intelligent, hard-working, dedicated, talented and (of course) thin and athletic, but who also has a strange habit... I wonder if West's words to him signify the beginning of a relationship similar to that of the Chief and her husband: strong woman character whose formerly thin and talented husband gradually sinks into despair and obesity, alienated from his wife, his sons and himself.

Rating:
Summary: Awfully disappointing. She never should have published it.
Review: This must have been her practice book written when she was 16. I'll now look at reviews before reading another Cornwell book. Read them all, so that kept me going until the end, waiting for something to happen. It never did, except for the fact that I realized that no editor ever put a hand to the book.

Rating:
Summary: A big mistake to exhume this one....
Review: This bears so little resemblance to Cornwell's assured, suspenseful Kay Scarpetta titles that I have to conclude it's maybe her first novel, the obligatory learning-experience make-every-mistake-in-the book one that most wise writers consign to a bottom drawer and leave there. To cash in on the Cornwell craze it seems some marketing genius decided to dig this one up and foist it on her unsuspecting fans. Bad move. Presented as juvenilia it might be sort of amusing, but passing this off as mature work can only hurt this writer's reputation.

Rating:
Summary: This book was a great disappointment.
Review: If this were my first Cornwell book, I doubt I would ever buy another. As it is, I will be very cautious in the future. It reads like something she wrote long before she learned how to write.