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Summary: Who REALLY wrote this book?
Review: Don't judge the author based on this boring book. Her others are great!! I plodded through about 150 pages of this thing before I finally realized it was NOT going to get better & threw it out. I really can't believe this was written by Patricia Cornwell.
Rating: 
Summary: Read in one sitting!
Review: I love Ms. Cornwell's style of writing. She develops characters into real people. I love Kay Scarpetta and was disappointed that this latest book wasn't another of her adventures. However, I was happily pleased to meet both Hammer and Brazil. (Pete Marino, where are you?). I've read the reviews written by other readers and cannot believe the Cornwell bashing - you try writing a novel and getting it published! I feel the Hornets Nest is a good first foray into a new set of characters. If Ms. Cornwell were to stylize these characters the same as in the Scarpetta books you'd all complain about that too. I loved the cat in this book and hope he continues long into this series. The ending was rather abrupt for me, but it certainly made me wonder where the next book will begin. Brazil is a young man and I feel certain as he ages and as he continues to work with Hammer he will gain maturity quite nicely. If you like Cornwell, pick this one up. Enjoy the opening in what promises to be another great world of characters you'll learn to love. I am anxiously awaiting any new Cornwell novel. Has anyone read A Time To Remember? or do you know where I can get a copy? Loretta (Eirehc@prodigy.net).
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Summary: The ending smelled like last weeks dirty diapers!!!
Review: Give me Dr. Kay. I like not having any fingernails. Didn't sleep with a ball bat after I read this one.
Rating:
Summary: Patty's Gone Round The Bend!
Review: Maybe we should blame the publisher's credo, that in the mystery genre, one must write and publish one sequel per year to be successful. Cornwell's first 3 or 4 books were new, exciting and passionate, but then she started to slow down. In Hornet's Nest she comes to a parade rest. Worse, it's obvious she doesn't know WHAT to write about. Personal agendas jump out at you from every alley and crime scene. Plots start and stop like the 5:22 local to Patchogue. It's probably a cliche to say the characters are cliched, so how 'bout shallow and underdeveloped. "Quit while you're ahead," would be good advice to authors like Ms. Cornwell, Mr. Ccichton and Ms Anne Rice, whom she seems to be stalking!
Rating:
Summary: Therapy for Patricia?
Review: I was terribly disappointed in this book. Patricia was obviously using this book to reflect what was going on in her life at the time of the writing. She was so into showing that people are not always what they seem, and that different people may have differing opinions on another person. There was no plot to speak of, just pages upon pages of character development. There was no real end to the story, either, it felt like falling off a cliff, without the actual fall. One minute you're there, the next...I will definately read her next book, because Patricia Cornwell has shown me time and time again what a great author she is. However, if there is no Dr. Kay, I doubt I will read it (unless it's from the library and I'm desperate).
Rating:
Summary: Save your money!!!
Review: Hornets Nest is the second book I purchased by Patricia Cornweel and I just don't get her popularity. This book, like the other I tried to read was left on the airplane . Didn't get past 6 chapters in either one without yawning. At least I was able to sleep on the plane.
Rating: 
Summary: By page 100 I started to laugh: Tom Sharpe is better.
Review: Is Hornet's Nest a send up, like Sargent Beef who goes about with his "writer" as some writers went about with their "detective"? Half way through the "where to keep the banana" episode I started to laugh, and laughed many more times the rest of the way through. First I thought Cornwell couldn't do a three-dimensional male character;now I think this cardboard cut-out of an innocent, Brazil, is a send up in the wonderful Tom Sharpe tradition of Wilt. The accumulating misunderstandings of police actions are bemusing to amusing, but not up to my expectations for Cornwell.
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Summary: Unfocused panoply of anti-heroes fail to solve mystery
Review: What's happened to Patricia Cornwell? Her brilliant observations are wasted here in confetti like bursts about random characters who pop up and never appear again. The novel lacks plot structure and anyone with whom to identify - except perhaps for the reverently described but unidimensional female police chief, Hammer - and she is not really involved in solving the main mystery - a series of murders which is set up in the beginning - and then abandoned for pages and pages of wanderings. I kept with it, hoping for a miracle. Wish I hadn't. Bring back Scarpetta - and a plot - please!
Rating:
Summary: "How I Spent My Summer Vacation"...6th-grade writing at MOST
Review: As I began reading this book I was reminded of something a professor once said in a short-story writing class I took. "Never throw ANYTHING you've written away, even if it is rejected 100 times. If you ever hit the big time, just pull out all those rejectees...they'll print them...and people will buy them." Well, Cornwell apparently kept this one from sixth grade...perhaps teacher said, "write something about a city you visited this summer," and Cornwell had been to Charlotte. What else could explain this work that seems almost amateurish when compared with her previous works...unpolished...unsophisticated...just plain unreadable. I didn't even finish the book...threw it across the room in disgust. I have never enjoyed being talked down to...Cornwell's "style" in this work is to "speak" to the reader as if he/she were not quite bright. If Cornwell has more stuff mouldering in her file cabinets, I urge her to keep it there. Don't foist it off on an unsuspecting and previously loyal public. It's a dirty trick.
Rating:
Summary: "Betrayal"--A Better Title?
Review: I have read all of Cornwell's Scarpetta books in quick succession. I have a love/hate relationship with Kay; I admire her professionally and ethically yet her snobbery and condescending attitude irritate. For that reason, I couldn't wait to get my hands on "Hornet's Nest". Something different from my favorite author, who now seemed like a friend. Gee...I feel like thatfriend betrayed me by capitalizing on my affection for her previous books purely to make a buck.
Andy Brazil had so few humanqualities that I had a hard time relating to him in any sense. His alcoholic mother and murdered father--gimme a break, what a cliché! Cornwell seemed to be laboring to show that West could behave like a man in a woman's body <why did she have to be attractive??> and appear credible. I felt that PC made her gravest mistake by reverse-stereotyping West. Virginia would have been a wonderful opportunity to stand up for women in positions of authority by allowing her to use her femininity as an ally, as opposed to repressing it. West did not earn my respect, and I'm left with a feeling of PC's intentions here backfiring. Hammer was the only character that made me FEEL anything, and that was mostly confusion at someone so strong and successful not having dumped the loser Seth years ago! And as for Niles--I wondered if I had missed a key paragraph somewhere!! I was amazed at how PC slipped the killer's identity in with nary a whimper! The conclusion was very poor--I was again left feeling cheated and angry that I had been gullible enough to pay $20 for this on the strength of my admiration of Cornwell's past work, and by choosing to ignore the negative reviews.
Having said all of this, I will, of course, be buying "Point of Origin"...but not until the paperback is available.
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