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Rating: 
Summary: This one must have been "Mailed In"
Review: I agree with all of the previous negative comments, and I won't repeat points they made.
I have never read this author before, but picked up this book at the library based on numerous plaudits on the (paperback) book. Based on this one, I won't bother to read any others. I don't write many reviews, but I was moved to write this one just to warn others away.
First, I will say that the basic premise of the book was intriguing and sufficiently interesting that I read it completely through. Maybe my frustration comes from the fact that the story development was handled SO poorly. (It coulda been a contender)
The book is riddled with
-- errors, like "Angora" [not Angola ??] Prison, "Pittsburgh Pennsylvania University" [not the University of Pittsburgh] Steps leading to a house are made out of cypress-- when a few pages earlier, they were made of cedar. Supposedly the bobbing movement of the room shown on a video help the good guys to figure out that it is on a boat. But the camera and room are fixed in position on the same boat, so there would be NO apparent movement in the video.
--and--
-- hackneyed or unrealistic plot devices Split personality is a very rare condition used far too often in fiction, so perhaps I shouldn't complain. But, eating fresh brains is so compelling that even police pick up the habit quickly ?? We're told that a hurricane is hitting to the south, close enough that local helicopters have been sent down for rescue work. But around here, the air and water are so calm that the fog is inpenetrable ?
I don't understand why there are so many unconnected vignettes of unknown people reading mostly technical material about brain anatomy on web sites. It comes across to me as if some research assistant had taken the trouble to copy that technical information down, and the author had to fit it in SOMEWHERE.
Enough. I fear that I have already devoted more brain energy to this book than it deserves.
Rating:
Summary: One of the worst...and I rarely meet a book I don't like!
Review: I couldn't get going on this book. It was completely unrealistic. The police procedure was totally incorrect; in addition to the glaring inconsistencies between proper FBI procedure and what the author tried to get the reader to believe. As a result, I was constantly turned off by the book. I found my attention wandering every time that I came across a mistake in procedure.
Walker's portrayal of a female Law Enforcement Officer was much too trite and Hollywood. I found myself rolling my eyes and shaking my head at passages involving the Duval County Sheriff. It was almost as if he was writing his characters with specific actors and actresses in mind, instead of real people doing real jobs.
My advice? Stop dreaming of Hollywood, start doing some procedural study, and for pete's sake...research the REAL people that do the real jobs in your books.
Rating:
Summary: One of the worst...and I rarely meet a book I don't like!
Review: I couldn't get going on this book. It was completely unrealistic. The police procedure was totally incorrect; in addition to the glaring inconsistencies between proper FBI procedure and what the author tried to get the reader to believe. As a result, I was constantly turned off by the book. I found my attention wandering every time that I came across a mistake in procedure.
Walker's portrayal of a female Law Enforcement Officer was much too trite and Hollywood. I found myself rolling my eyes and shaking my head at passages involving the Duval County Sheriff. It was almost as if he was writing his characters with specific actors and actresses in mind, instead of real people doing real jobs.
My advice? Stop dreaming of Hollywood, start doing some procedural study, and for pete's sake...research the REAL people that do the real jobs in your books.
Rating:
Summary: What Happened???
Review: I eagerly awaited the release of this in paper back having read all previous Instinct books! The previous books were so well researched, Jessica was smart, savy and knew her proceedure inside out. Nothing slipped past her and she outsmarted everyone!
This book she is like a rookie patrolman. It's like someone else wrote this book and just filled it with shock value murder scenes.
Oh Mr. Walker, this is such a disappointment!
Rating: 
Summary: Horrific Law & Order and X-Files in one
Review: I have read all of Robert Walker's Edge series and Instinct series and cannot put any of these titles down, but this...this one I THREW across the room as it frightened me to death. Of course, later, I crawled over and found where I left off and read and finished the book. It ought to be called RAW Instinct. I love horror and while this book is mainstream suspense, it is also horror. No one crosses or bends genres so well as Mr. Walker. He quite literally captures your mind and holds it hostage with his use of the setting, characters, plot all woven into such a fine tapestry that it literally gets your adrenalin going like a roller coaster. I can't say enough about this book. It is a must read for anyone interested in a unique voice in forensic and medical examiner books, and Walker's Jessica Coran is topflight--over Scully any day of the week, and I'm so glad he did not draw her as a Jody Foster type. Mr. Walker has a fine website as well under his 13 letter name dot com. That too is a must see. It explains all his 4 pen names and lists all his 36 titles.
Rating:
Summary: As good as it gets
Review: Rather than harm his wife and child, Dr. Grant Kenyon and his alter ego "Phillip" moved out of his home in New Jersey and trolled I-95 for females. Once Grant snatched the innocent young woman, Phillip would take over and surgically cut the brain out and eat it. He believes that eating fresh human brains will increase his awareness and achieve cosmic consciousness. Grant is modeling his behavior after Daryl Thomas Chockil "The New Jersey Ghoul" who dug up the bodies of dead children in 1990 and ate a part of their brain. He was incarcerated in a hospital for the mentally insane but has gotten out a month before the skull-digger started killing his victims. The FBI immediately focus their attention on Daryl but medical examiner Dr. Jessica Coran thinks the real killer is setting up The New Jersey Ghoul to take the fall. She persuades her superiors to look for someone who keeps logging on to Daniel's website and after a ton of digging, they find a likely suspect but Jessica almost gets herself killed when she tries to take him in. Robert W. Walker can always be counted on to create an exciting crime thriller with a villain that readers love to hate. Told from the point of view of the killer, the audience learns that the character suffers from multiple personality disorder but he is so evil, he illicits no sympathy. The novel is also told from the protagonist's point of view and readers sympathize with her feelings of impotence and frustration as she tries to convince her superiors to go after the right person, not the easiest one to blame. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: Grave Instincts
Review: Scary, fun, keeps you guessing until the end. I could not put it down. BONE CHILLING FUN!! CONGRATS Rob Walker! Your best yet. A MUST READ!
Rating:
Summary: Amazing What this Author Does
Review: This author will go anywhere and take you anywhere with him with such deft handling of point of view that YOU become the killer when you are in his mind, and you become the forensic investigator when you are in her mind. The man's style is artistic and beautiful and just plain great words craft. Walker must have grown up on Faulkner and became a student of Martin Cruz Smith with a smattering of Mark Twain's dark humor, and he quite literally makes boy scouts and girl scouts of all the other authors working in forensic supense with his edgy horrific overtones. This book ought to be studied by other authors for its amazing opening pages, its intensity throughout the middle ground, and its breakneck pace to a satisfying yet again amazing ending. Walker's character, so Scully-like, was created before X-Files, and for my money, Jessica Coran kicks Agent Scully's [butt] all over the place. And this coming from a longtime Scullyphile who loves Brian Adams's music video Scully tribute "I Wanna Be Your Underwear." Grave Instinct is a can't-put-down read, so block out or carve out time enough for this one. Grave Instinct just simply ROCKS.
Rating: 
Summary: Too gory!!
Review: This is the first of his I have read' will NOT go back and read the previous ones. He seems to revel in the grotesque torture scenes, and the characters never make me empathize with them. Cornwell and Reichs he is NOT!!
Rating:
Summary: Too gory!!
Review: This is the first of his I have read' will NOT go back and read the previous ones. He seems to revel in the grotesque torture scenes, and the characters never make me empathize with them. Cornwell and Reichs he is NOT!!
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