Rating: 
Summary: One Of The Worst Books Ever
Review: I've read almost every one of Patricia Cornwall's books and this book is simply awful. I couldn't even bring myself to finish it (and I always finish a book). She should stick with the Kay Scarpetta novels. Not that going off series is a bad thing, but this book just didn't engage me at all. If you're a Kay Scarpetta fan, don't read this book. You'll be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: I'm glad it's not just me
Review: Looking at other reviews I can see that I am not the only one that didn't "get" this book. I do applaud the author's attempt to write in something other that her usual dark and gruesome style, but this one isn't doing it for me. The characters are unlikeable and 2-dimensional and the plot is nearly non-existant. I picked up "Southern Cross" in the hope that it would be more interesting. Unfortunately, it is not. Ms Cornwell seems to have no flair for satire.
Rating:
Summary: one star still too much
Review: Having read my share of police thrillers I must say this is the dullest, most boring and plainly dumbest I ever read. The author obviously has no clue about police work (I am a cop), if she ever would read this, she might for example learn that cops don't have "scanners" in their cars but radios. And on it goes, blatant stupidity seems to reign this police department where about every rule in real-life PDs is broken (for example unarmed volunteer cops riding RMPs alone and fighting armed gangsters. Come on, give us Superman any time but don't put him into a blue uniform). But, if you have Superwoman and Batwoman together at the helm of this department, the two are just so superhuman that they do all the crime-fighting alone. Well, if there would be any crime. But I stopped reading at page 138 because nothing had really happened yet in this city which is totally run by women. I am not against this idea, but the simplicity of this picture is just insulting to the reader's intelligence: all the leading people in this city are women (the two heads of the PD, the D.A. and so on) = good people, all the stupid and evil ones (even named "Bubba" for crying out loud) are of course male. Oh yes, the author noticed that this might just be too easy so she throws in a male lead character who has the maturity of a 5-year old and loves to play Keystone Kop and a female serial killer who is so off the reality track that she too sounds like a slapstick movie character. Even if the idea of this book is to foster feminism and not to write a good police thriller, at least it would have deserved some "thrill". But the main problem with it is the utter boredom it evokes. This book is an insult and should be thrown to the trash immediately.
Rating:
Summary: Hornet's Nest - Audio Version
Review: I didn't want to rate this book because I never finished it. Actually, I barely started it. Chris Sarandon's reading of the story was so annoying to hear I turned it off after about 10 minutes. He doesn't tell the story, he reports it. I may try reading the book, but then maybe not, after seeing other reader's reviews.
Rating: 
Summary: Cornwell Misses
Review: Patricia Cornwell, author of the Scarpetta books, ventures from her usual black against black areas of life to a more grey-ish spot, complete - though - with the same frustrations and horrors as always. The books reads like a script for a 45 min. episode of some TV crime series, and Cornwell even tries to be funny. Occasionally. With no luck, obviously. In Ms. Cornwell's literary universe nothing ever quite succeeds, no-one comes through, and all arrows - quoting a poem - points to the heart, and it's dark. Bleak, dark, and lonesome. This is what the Scarpetta books are all about, and Cornwell is a master of creating a sense of despair. Funny, however, she is not. The characters in "Hornet's Nest" are all caricaturized, and the male hero hardly seems credible. The most interesting are the two females, Virginia West and Judy Hammer, the not-as-such-mother-and-daughter (as Scarpetta is not-as-such Lucy's mother), set up to act in accordance with some kind of unresolved mother complex. Of Cornwell's. Patricia Cornwell is a good writer, and one expects a lot from her. One should. If you've read the Scarpetta books, and enjoyed them, read this one as well. If you've never read a book by Cornwell, do it! Just don't start with this one. This one, I think, was a miss.
Rating:
Summary: In Need of an Editor!
Review: Did Patricia Cornwall dictate this in her sleep and send it directly to the printer? This book is a mess - the sentences are too long, she editorializes endlessly and it's very disorganized on a most basic level. On every page there is at least one example of the total lack of editing or revision this book really needed. Sentences that follow one after the other have no relation to each other. The Kay Scarpetta books don't compete with Jane Austen for style, but they have basic narrative continuity. This is just a disaster.
Rating: 
Summary: It's not a Scarpetta, and it's laugh-out-loud funny.
Review: I've read Hornet's Nest. I've also read a number of Cornwell's Scarpetta novels.Or rather, I've read the same Scarpetta novel, a number of times. You know, the one where there's a killer on the loose who ends up focusing on Kay/forcing a showdown at Kay's house/Marino gets there in time/the killer is killed/the first, plus any or all remaining options. And the killer is a psycho/has some weird genetic defect/has a really bad haircut/stinks/the first, plus any or all remaining options. While the ailing sidekick/slob/sergeant Marino, who is often on the couch, is described as being early fifties in the first novel and is still in his early fifties when only-evidence-of-family Lucy (don't Italians have big families?) has gone from being a ten-year-old brat with an implausible understanding of SQL to a 26-year-old ex-agent who is still getting over her traumatic first-love FBI supervisor five years ago in the space of... er, eleven years. While computer technology hasn't actually advanced at all, presumably because Cornell is still writing on and about the same wordprocessor. But she's noticed that society has, so the incidence of cigarette smoking drops somewhat over time. Sorry, but I notice these things. No wonder the first Scarpetta novel was the one that won all those awards. It was original, and it didn't have the continuity errors that an extended series that stretches disbelief to breaking point often leads to. Hornet's Nest is an original too. So, just like the first, original, Scarpetta, I enjoyed Hornet's Nest for its originality, its plot, the occasional evidence of background research and display of specialist knowledge, and, surprisingly, for its writing - even if its characters are badly-delineated badly-motivated cardboard cutouts with cheesy names. ('Hammer'? And there wasn't even a 'Sledge' joke. Or an 'It takes a hammer to crack a Brazil nut' joke.) Unlike the Scarpettas, which are character novels with simple cardboard plots (okay, one simple cardboard plot with minor variations), Hornet's Nest is very much a plot novel with cardboard characters; the characters are there purely to keep the complex plot going. And that they do. What amazed me was the number of times I laughed out loud - which seems to tally with other English reviewers here. The Scarpetta novels are many things, but funny is not one of them. Hornet's Nest is funny. The viewpoints and sly contrasts of the different perspectives of characters - and the occasional animal, too - reminded me of Neal Stephenson's sardonic-with-style 'Snow Crash' for several reasons, even if that's in a different genre. After reading the deadly-focused me-me-me-angst-me Scarpetta novels, I didn't think Cornwell - or anyone who dedicates books to Barbara Bush, for that matter - had it in herself to be intentionally funny. Hornet's Nest shows that Cornwell has more writing ability than the Scarpettas alone suggest. Okay, perhaps not that much more. But hey, she can do comedy, she's mastered third-person now, she's beginning to play fast and loose and subvert the rules in the genre she understands, and Hornet's Nest is more entertaining than many Scarpettas. Based on this, I'm looking forward to reading 'Southern Cross', the sequel to 'Hornet's Nest'. Or I would be, if I hadn't already read the sequels to the original Scarpetta novels. There's a nagging doubt that I will have read a better 'Southern Cross' somewhere before, and that this is it. Get in on the ground floor of the next Scarpetta series. Read Hornet's Nest now, and save your time later. If it was good enough to make me write my first Amazon review, it's good enough for you to plough through. You'll probably be glad you did.
Rating:
Summary: Missed the boat
Review: This novel was a disappointment. Cornwell didn't seem to like any of her characters and didn't develop them (well, okay, Niles the cat was pretty good). Judy Hammer had possibilities but was left flat. If you haven't read any of Cornwell's usually engrossing novels, don't start with this one.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty Poor
Review: Mmmm... This is the first and only book I have ever read by this author and I must admit I was surprised how highly my mother spoke of her after reading it. There are in my opinion three main problems. Firstly, the romantic hints between the two main characters is so blatantly a device to keep you reading it becomes really annoying. Secondly, the plot is almost an afterthought, you couldn't really care less that another person is dead, you had forgotten the book was even supposed to be a murder hunt so much time is given over to the two or three main characters. Thirdly and perhaps appropriately given the last point the plot ends so abruptly and lets face it unnaturally that you feel like you've been hit in the face, one minute your reading along and then suddenly its "oh its over." On the plus side however, what really keeps me going when reading a novel like this is feeling that you literally could be walking about in their world, Charlotte, not to be rude, would ever be my number one holiday destination but you really do get to feel like a local while reading along. So if you have four hours 'till your plane leaves then fair enough but if your somebody who really likes the author, like my mother, then I wouldn't bother.
Rating:
Summary: Held Captive
Review: I hadn't read a Patricia Cornwell story before I picked upHornet's Nest last week. After reading this book, I'vebeen kicking myself ever since for not discovering Cornwell before! I absolutely loved the book and its characters; particularly the tension between Brazil and West and the late development of Judy Hammer's character. Hornest's Nest captivated me so much that I rushed out and bought the sequel Southern Cross to continue the story - I was desperate to read what happened to the characters next... and that in my mind is one hell of a good book. Needless to say I'll be starting on the Scarpetta series soon.
|
