Customer Reviews

All That Remains: A Scarpetta Novel

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

A female pathologist, dressed in white overalls and rubber boots and carrying a heavy bag, raises the tape and enters the crime scene. Who is she? Well, she is one of a species of investigators that has become enormously popular in recent years. Writer Patricia Cornwall has depicted her in a highly successful series, calling her Dr Kay Scarpetta. With training in forensic pathology herself, and a string of awards for her books, Miss Cornwall's achievements have elevated her to the top of the queue of authors waiting to be read by this reviewer.

I found much to admire, in this my first Patricia Cornwall book. Plotting and planning have been meticulously done. A disappointing ending - so often the ruination of a good crime novel - has been avoided. The narration is in clean, plain sentences. Cornwall has her forensic pathologist character, Dr Kay Scarpetta, lead the investigation into a series of killings, and her knowledge of the forensic pathology involved is highly impressive.

Reducing my admiration, however, are several deficiencies. I happen to like crime investigation novels that mix some charm, warmth, caprice or eccentricity into the investigative proceedings. Cornwall keeps all these additives locked away in her cupboard. Dr Kay Scarpetta's life is a distinctly feminist, answering machine, laboratory gowned and masked one, at least in this book. Am I looking in the wrong place if I expect wit, warmth, vibrant male-female interaction or spruce dialogue as I follow a forensic pathologist investigating serial killings? As if she were aware of the need for these "cozy" qualities, Patricia Cornwall introduced a niece for Dr Kay Scarpetta in her first book which I am now reading, allowing something like maternalism to soften the otherwise strong feminist atmosphere that pervades "All That Remains".

A female pathologist, dressed in white overalls and rubber boots and carrying a heavy bag, raises the tape and enters the crime scene. Who is she? Well, she is one of a species of investigators that has become enormously popular in recent years. Writer Patricia Cornwall has depicted her in a highly successful series, calling her Dr Kay Scarpetta. With training in forensic pathology herself, and a string of awards for her books, Miss Cornwall's achievements have elevated her to the top of the queue of authors waiting to be read by this reviewer.

I found much to admire, in this my first Patricia Cornwall book. Plotting and planning have been meticulously done. A disappointing ending - so often the ruination of a good crime novel - has been avoided. The narration is in clean, plain sentences. Cornwall has her forensic pathologist character, Dr Kay Scarpetta, lead the investigation into a series of killings, and her knowledge of the forensic pathology involved is highly impressive.

Reducing my admiration, however, are several deficiencies. I happen to like crime investigation novels that mix some charm, warmth, caprice or eccentricity into the investigative proceedings. Cornwall keeps all these additives locked away in her cupboard. Dr Kay Scarpetta's life is a distinctly feminist, answering machine, laboratory gowned and masked one, at least in this book. Am I looking in the wrong place if I expect wit, warmth, vibrant male-female interaction or spruce dialogue as I follow a forensic pathologist investigating serial killings? As if she were aware of the need for these "cozy" qualities, Patricia Cornwall introduced a niece for Dr Kay Scarpetta in her first book which I am now reading, allowing something like maternalism to soften the otherwise strong feminist atmosphere that pervades "All That Remains".

This is the first book I've read by Patricia Cornwell. It will also be my last. I am absolutely baffled by the hundreds of positive reviews here on Amazon. This book was one of the worst I have ever read.

First, it was so long and drawn out. By the time you get to the end, you're on the edge of your seat waiting for that knock 'em dead moment when the killer is revealed and all of the clues are explained. Instead, you get a boring, predictable, disappointing ending that goes nowhere. It was like Cornwell just gave up on the story. There were so many characters who could have been the killer - their erratic behavior explained and an interesting ending provided. No such luck.

Also, Kay's lack of closure with Mark irritated me. There is no ending to their story. Just disappointing overall.

I dont know what's all the bad rap about this book, as I've seen in a few reviews below. It's a solid Cornwell novel. And please, as much as I love medicine and pathology novels, it's nice to see the Medical examiner snoop around, and do stuff, rather than sit in the lab all day.

I wish the ending was longer, because the whole story was pretty heavy duty. I like to see the whole action unfold even more.

Overall, another great read, dont miss it. Not to give things away, but the murderer isn't caugh on pure luck, as someone said below. All the investigating pays off, and I enjoyed the moment ( at the end) when I figured out who it was.

No doubt here that Kay Scarpetta fans will enjoy this book. Patricia Cornwell constructs an enjoyable story here that will keep you turning the pages.

This my favorite Patrica Cornwell book that deals with her charecter Dr. Kay Scarpetta. There is some guy out there killing young couples in the Virginia area. The press seemingly always without imagination in these types of books has started to call him "The Couple Killer".

With mounting political preasure Scarpetta has to do what she is good at...crack the case.

Some people give this serise a hard time because Scarpetta spends most of her time doing the actual field investigations not really any forenscis work. I was fine with that and I respect the fact that authors couldn't sell many books if they just had the main charecter working in a lab all day.

What annoyed me was Abby's charecter never in my entire life have I actually been praying for the bad guy to kill one of the charecters. Did she always whine so much?

All the other members of the supporting cast I liked Morino, The old black guy even the couple killer. They all had depth, life and a sense of humor.

I had only read the first and one other in this serise. I plan to go get some more. I suggest you do the same.

A serial killer dubbed by the media as "The Couple Killer" is kidnapping young couples, murdering them and leaving their bodies to decompose where they aren't discovered until Hunting season begins. This is one of my favorite Scarpetta novels. Any positive adjective you can come up with, I used it when I finished this book. I've read this book several times, and it's just as good the third and fourth time as it was the first. Patricia Cornwell once again proves why she is crime fiction's highest selling, most accomplished writer.

Dr. Kay Scarpetta has eight decomposed bodies with no known cause of death, couples, lovers, victims of the Couple Killer. When a fresh pair turns up, it looks like the girl is the daughter of a govt. official. Kay's boss wants the crimes solved before anymore bodies turn up, so Kay tries to find the serial killer before he does it again.

There are times when this book gets a little weird, but it is intense, impossible to put down. I read it in one sitting, turning the pages as if they were scorching my fingers. However I did think the killer could have been fleshed out just a bit more, but that's probably just gruesome me, wanting to know every detail about why someone kills the way PC has her bad guys kill. Anyway this is surely a five star effort on PC's part. No one does this kind of stuff the way she does.

Review submitted by Captain Katie Osborne

I really enjoyed this book. The forensics were probably a little scarcer than usual in a Patricia Cornwell book, but I don't think the book suffered because of that. I find that I have to know that I'm going to set aside a day to read one of these books because I can't put it down, and want to finish it one sitting. In this book Dr. Scarpetta is up against a serial killer who is killing young couples. There's spooks (spies) and politics galore and we find Kay trying to do her job while working around all these outside pressures. These books are so genuine and so authentic that I am truly hooked.

I picked up this book without knowing the order that the Scarpetta series had been written in. Cornwell does a good job of filling in back story unobtrusively so I don't think it is problem to start randomly, however, if I had had the choice I would have started with the first book. Her writing is slower paced than the average mystery/thriller and my own preference would have been to cut out some of the description but I keep turning page after page so I won't say I was ever bored.

This is definitely a series written with a woman in mind as it's target audience, however, it was a compliment by Steven King, in his nonfiction book on writing, that gave me the impetus to try a Cornwell novel. She keeps the story moving and her dialogue and pace are entertaining if not just a bit overdone. I've only read one of Grafton's alphabet series and in comparison, I'd say that Cornwell goes way deeper into description, dialogue, and characterization but that they'd both appeal to the same kind of reader.

One of the things I think about when reading this kind of best selling popular novel is whether or not it would make a good film. I don't believe that this book would translate well into film, too much of it is filler, description's of peoples clothes, food, medical equipment and the like. There is action, but I never felt much danger to the main characters and the way that the killer is eventually caught smacked me as being way to coincidental, as if there really wasn't a clever enough of a way to catch him.

I have two other complaints, one minor and one more of a problem. The minor one was the simple problem of an echo, an unusual word she used twice, once to describe trees being taken over by a parasitic growth and once to describe buildings taking over the country side. The other issue was something that happens in the beginning of the book, a search dog jumps back from a car seat in obvious fright. It was a big foreshadowing event, I thought, but was dealt with in the end with a couple of lines in a small paragraph. Both anticlimactic and unbelievable, however I will be the first to admit I am a bit picky.

I would recommend this work to any that like mystery thrillers, but would suggest getting the first book and starting there.

I am also torn when it comes to rating. It is probably better than average in it's field, however I don't believe it's a strong 4 or a 5, but being as 3 stars just means average, I'll give it a 4.