Rating: 
Summary: p. Cornwell let me down this time!
Review: I hadn't been to the library in about 2 years, was way out of touch w/all my favorite authors. We just soooo glad when I got in there & found a patricia cornwell book waiting for me! Got home, started reading it & was really confused. Where was Kay? Why did all these characters have all these stupid names? Where was it all leading? Unfortnately, I let myself read until the last 25-50 pages before I just didn't care anymore. A Governors seretary who is trying to find thrown away fish as witnesses, crabs that can plot.,,,,,,,Ms. cornwell, what where you thinking? I believe the only reason this book was published is because of your name......& you should be ashamed for trying to dupe us all this way. This is a really stupid book. Im sorry you lead me to waste my time on this. I guess I'll have to think twice before I pull your next book of the library shelf w/o even reading the intro - like I always used to pull the book off the shelf just by reading that you were the author! Gonna think twice!
Rating:
Summary: I felt like I had to finish this book because I never...
Review: quit in the middle of one, but now I wish I hadn't wasted my time. What can I say that the other 600 reviewers haven't? I'm not easily offended, and I think we've gotten too PC, but I thought this book was offensive to pretty much everybody, blacks, Virginians, rednecks, Nascar fans, etc. The dialogue was so annoying to read. I guess not one of the characters in the book had anything higher than an 8-yr. old's vocabulary and grammar skills. I take that back. Brazil, Hammer, Scarpetta (however briefly) are evidently geniuses alone in a large city. Anyway, don't waste your time.
Rating:
Summary: Dumb book...
Review: This book is really dumb. I realize that it's supposed to be comedic in nature, but I found it impossible to achieve the suspension of disbelief necessary to actually enjoy the story.
Every time the island people's speech was represented, I just cringed. Nobody could speak that stupidly! The people on the island sound too dumb to be alive. (No offense to the actual residents of Tangiers intended.) Bottom line: dumb book! Don't waste your time reading it.
Sorry Patricia - Love your Scarpetta series!
Rating: 
Summary: My 2 cents worth
Review: This was the funniest book I have ever read. The author must have had a really good time writing it. I think this is my favorite of the cornwell books so far.
Rating:
Summary: Gone to the Dogs
Review: Farce is not Ms Cornwell's forte. If you have read other Cornwell's and loved them, as I had, please save yourself the time and disappointment by simply not bothering with Isle of Dogs. It is bad.
If I had never heard of Ms Cornwell I would have thought this to be a first novel and vanity published.
The plot is weak, the characters absurd and the whole novel is an insult to a reader's intelligence and Cornwell fans' loyalty.
If I could have rated lower than 1 star it would have given me pleasure to award this a -5.
Rating:
Summary: A definite dog
Review: I can't believe the same author who wrote "Postmorten" actually wrote this drival. The characters are unlikable and ridiculous. If I'd bought it, I'd demand my money back. I got it from the library and put a note in the front of the book, "Don't waste your time reading this."
This is supposed to be humor? NOT!
If you want a good book with genuine humour read anything by Carl Hiassen.
Rating:
Summary: Nasty - Bad - Horrible
Review: There are no words to describe exactly how bad this book really is. I was astounded that such a piece of writing could come from one of my favorite mystery writers. She must be taking a vacation & trying new things -- better to try & fail, I guess, than to wonder. Well, wonder no more! This is awful. One of the few books in my life I didn't bother finishing. Don't waste your money --
Rating:
Summary: The Reviewers Are Slandering Carl Hiaasen
Review: This is really bad. Really bad. Bad, bad novel. I gave it one star because there aren't any negative stars in the reviewers' pull-down menu. Thank goodness I got it for 20 cents as a book-club enrollment offer. But I wish I'd selected the tote bag instead. This book establishes that Cornwell will have to write off any thought of ever using Judy Hammer and Andy Brazil as serious characters again. They deserved better, despite being weak creations to begin with. They could have developed into an ordinary, somewhat likeable crew for a police-procedural series. Instead, they're well on their way to becoming shallow and ludicrous cardboard cutouts. Poor Andy, who began life as a somewhat competent journalist, becomes a masked-crusader Web author -- Trooper Truth -- with a badly-conceived public-service mission. Chapters of the novel are interspersed with truly dreadful Trooper Truth columns, rambling, badly-written, poorly-researched, lurid, condescending pieces indeed. If my eighth-grade grandson ever wrote a history paper as truly stupid as Trooper Truth's lesson on mummies, I'd have him in summer school until he turned 35. Judy Hammer also fares badly, and a particularly labored subplot about her kidnapped dog makes her silly rather than sympathetic. Obviously, the author has no understanding of the culture of Tangier Island -- having used it as a contagion site in an earlier Scarpetta novel, she should have left it alone thereafter. Instead, she recycles her left-over notes on the location and performs an all-out and somewhat ugly lampoon this time out. And she doesn't do the Commonwealth of Virginia any great service, either, creating a dotty, half-blind governor who is so one-dimensionally absurd that he fails as a caracature and seems to exist solely as a vehicle for potty jokes. Even Mr. Magoo was loveable. Hiassen's Skink is a classic example of the Wise Fool. Governor Crimm is a whining oaf and his family and advisors are weak adolescent humor at its tasteless nadir -- not even good satire. If Cornwell is trying to duplicate Carl Hiaasen's deft satirical scalpel, she'd be better off abandoning the attempt; the reader can balance Hiaasen's concern for the fragile Florida environment against his dislike for the developers and tourists who exploit it. Cornwell apparently neither loves Virginia nor its law-enforcement workers and is determined to milk everything in sight for cheap laughs. There's no cerebral humor here -- just school-yard slapstick that's far too fragile to sustain a full-length novel. It's bad enough that each successive Kay Scarpetta novel becomes more issue-driven, losing ground to the vastly better-delivered work of Kathy Reichs. Isle of Dogs gives every indication of having been tossed off as an easy way to finance Cornwell's rather peculiar and self-congratulatory Jack the Ripper research trip. It's a shame when authors start believing their own reviews and decide that their fans will, sheeplike, cherish everything that falls from their word processors. One has to wonder what Cornwell's editor was thinking of; usually, edotors try to make their best-selling authors look good even in their weaker moments. Is it possible that we have a case of an imperious, arrogant author who has cheesed off her publishers enough that they're letting her readers see what she's really like? No, next time, definitely the tote bag.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I too am halfway through it, and have put it aside several times. I ALWAYS finish a book but this may be a first. Don't buy it if you're looking for a typical Cornwall.
Rating:
Summary: Hilarious departure from the norm...
Review: I hadn't purchased this before, because I'm a Scarpetta purist, but my hubby saw Patricia Cornwell and didn't remember seeing the cover art on my bookshelves anywhere, so he bought it for me. I even avoided it for a few days, but eventually I had to read it. I was ROLLING once I got into it. A black comedy of errors? Hilarious, and despite other reviews, I say it's very well written. NO, it's not your typical P.C. novel, but if you're open minded and have a sense of humor, I'd definitely recommend it. I couldn't put it down until I was done. I say go for it, and I hope to see more like it soon - a refreshing change of pace for an already excellent writer. Thanks, Ms. Cornwell for doing the unexpected.
Sorcha :)
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