Most helpful customer reviews
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1.0 out of 5 stars
Formula and stereotype trump logic, Jun 16 2004
By A Customer
Warning, some of this may be a spoiler.The book is full of stereotypes. The young brilliant lesbian helicopter pilot/computer genius/cop. The male slob police captain. The overweight public defender who could have used a bra and is Jewish to boot (it apparently doesn't occur to Cornwell that some people who are accused are innocent, or that everyone has the right to counsel so defense counsel are all villains in her view. Racially stereotyped villians.) Worse than that, the plot doesn't hold water. A foal survives a fire in the stable. A lot is made of that early in the book. Then it's dropped. An escaped mental patient is able to follow and anticipate Scarpetta's every move. How did that happen? Worst of all is the stupidity of the police. A horse ranch burns. A burned car is found on the premises. A body that does not belong to the ranch or the car is found in the bathroom. The owner of the ranch early on tells Scarpetta who the person killed likely is. No attempt is made, apparently, to trace this woman's life or look for connections (such as did anyone she know own such a car) for a few weeks until Scarpetta goes out and does it herself. In fact no one ever attempts to find out who the car belongs to until it just happens that, when they find who the killer is they realize (wow!) that, hey -- this person owns that type of car. But, of course, if the police had any sense and, in investigating a murder by arson looked for who owned the car that didn't belong there, they would have found the killer in a few hours and this long book would have ended without the endless whining of Scarpetta about the state of the world and how horrible it is that people are in it that cause her to do what she does for a living. But of course, it's hard to credit the criminal genius Scarpetta is pursuing with being diabolically clever when that person leaves an auto at the scene of the crime. Give me a break!
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4.0 out of 5 stars
A little weaker, but still good, Mar 29 2004
A very enjoyable read in the Kay Scarpetta series, although a bit weaker story than some of the others. Still, well worth your time to read.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Classic Cornwell!, Jan 15 2004
I read a lot of the reviews for this book, and I really don't agree with most of them. I think that this book is an extremely good example of Ms. Cornwell's chilling writing. The dialogue and the plot are crisp and the detail is incredible. We find out a lot about fire investigation in this book. Yes, I admit Ms. Cornwell does get rather graphic and "over-the-top" in her violence, but that is what makes a Kay Scarpetta book so Unputdownable. I do agree with others, that readers must read this series in order. A lot of what happens in each book is a take off from what happened in a previous one. It would be confusing if you started partway through. Also, the character development progesses with each book, so the reader needs to get inside Kay's head and see things in the way she would have. In this book, we see a previous villain come back to haunt Kay and the people that she loves. Kay is called in to a fire investigation where a body is found burned beyond recognition. The more she digs into the case, the more disturbed she becomes and she realizes that she is dealing with true monster who probably had committed many murders before this one. Also, the more she digs, the more it becomes apparent that an old nemesis (Carrie Grethen) is somehow behind these terrible crimes. Her, Benton, Lucy and Marino set out to find a killer and one of the truly evil people that she has ever encountered. Before the final twist of the plot at the end, Kay suffers a very personal tragedy. We will have to read how that has affected her in the next installment.
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