Da una parte, per mia fortuna, questo non era uno dei romanzi della Cornwell che mi ero letto a suo tempo dopo averla scoperta con Postmortem e mi risultava quindi come nuovo. Dall'altra però questa tendenza a ripubblicare nei Gialli da edicola, nella collana principale, testi che hanno avuto già una lunga vita in altre edizioni mi suona un po' come raschiare il fondo del barile. Recuperare da catalogo senza avere il coraggio di chiamarli "classici" perché tali non sono.
Inoltre ho come l'impressione che in questa edizione un romanzo già breve per i canoni dei thriller americani sia stato ulteriormente scorciato. Ci sono fatti che appaiono improvvisamente acquisiti senza che se ne sia accennato prima e non tutti possono essere imputati all'intelligenza superiore del protagonista.

fun and quick

A new series I liked the characters and development. Not sure why it is getting panned on good reads. I would definitely read the next installment.

From IMDb:
A district attorney wants to further her political dreams by solving an old murder.

Quite interesting but a not so appealing book. I am not so sure I'll put some effort to read this new series by Patricia Cornwell.

This book is a compilation of a serial story written for the New York Times Magazine....and it shows. I felt like I was reading that first draft. In these days of ghost written franchises (Robert Ludlum, Lawrence Saunders) At Risk doesn't read quite like a Cornwell work; I found myself re-reading sentences that didn't make sense the first time through. Makes me wonder.

In this novel, Patricia Cornwell does an excellent job describing the story while also providing detailed descriptions of each character. The novel is about a guy named Winston Garano, or Win, and the obstacles he faces in his job as a state investigator. Cornwell does a great job balancing the events of the story with the details of a few characters personal life outside of work. One of the main obstacles Winston Garano faces is his ever-changing relationship with District Attorney Lamont who was sexually assaulted by a man who had the intent of murder. Win coincidently walks in during the assault and accidentally ends up killing the attacker, saving Lamont. She isn't nearly as thankful as you may expect, however, and ends up continuing to ask more and more of Win. This persistence eventually drives Winston to frustration which causes him to cut ties with the DA at the end of the novel.

I really enjoyed reading this work and have plans to try reading another book written by author Patricia Cornwell. I was very drawn in by the numerous descriptions and well-developed characters. I would strongly recommend the book to anyone interested in books that revolve around investigations or forensics due to the book being based around an unsolved murder case from many years in the past.

I have always enjoyed Cornwell's books. Well, that is not strictly true. In that a few years, her writing style changed. Not for the better, I think. I am not sure which novel heralded the difference. It might have been "Precinct". However, this book is so lightweight it gives the impression that it was written in peevish haste, ie she had signed a contract and the publisher was pressurising her for a product. It feels as though it is only partially written like a skeleton of the story but it does have the potential to be gripping. Neither characters or plot are fully fleshed out. The overall feel of the novel is not suspense but more anger, the novelist's, which is expressed through the main female character, Monique Lamont.Some judicious editing of this character would make her more believeable She appears to dislike and distrust those around her in particular, men. As I said, it was lightweight. I dashed through it in a few hours. When searching for it to put on my list I note that there is another volume described "At Risk pt 2). I can't help but wonder if this is a ploy by both writer and publisher to bilk more money out of her fans.

Silly me thought that perhaps, with a break from the Scarpetta series, Patricia Cornwell would have recaptured some of the writing skills that made me a fan in the first place. Sadly, I was wrong.

The characters did not seem believable, the plot was not clear and didn't make a lot of sense (I didn't even get that Win shot the guy the first few reads, I thought he had just punched him out; also, why did Sykes have to harass everyone in the middle of the night for a folder that could surely wait till morning). Even the science was bad: "And by the way, when DNA is contaminated, you don't get false positives". Okay... No tension, didn't care about the characters or who was doing what.

This was a novella masquerading as a full-sized book by virtue of very large print, a strategy that most children realise never works soon after handing in their first typed homework.

Lette le prime cinquanta pagine in inglese e abbandonato.
Ripreso dopo un anno in italiano.
La lettura è proceduta così molto più velocemente, ma non mi ha lasciato nulla.
Sicuramente in inglese mi avrebbe fornito, almeno, l'esercizio in lingua.

Nope. Don't even go there. The main character is OK, but you don't really care about anyone else. And I kept thinking that it read like a long short story (?) Then I discovered a comment on the jacket that I had missed before saying that it was originally a 15-part series in the New Yorker magazine. Her other stuff is much better.

Patricia Cornwell is an excellent writer and once started, couldn't put this book down. It's fairly short and the first in a series where our Massachusetts investigator, Winston Garano (aka "Win" or "Geronimo") is introduced. Win is very good looking and bright, but has a chip on his shoulder because he didn't go to an Ivy League school. He manages to dress very well and Cornwell let's us know how he does it. Win isn't the only interesting character in the book. Enjoy! I did.

Patricia Cornwell was once one of my favorite authors, and I took any opportunity to purchase her books wherever I found them, certain that I would read them all, in order, over time. Sadly, she is no longer writing anywhere near the level she once had, and this is the last of her books I will ever purchase or read. In fact, I read it only because it was already on my shelf, and I hated to think I spent the money and never opened it.

At Risk is the first in Cornwell’s Winston Garano series (there are two so far). Best known for her Kay Scarpetta novels, and less for her Andy Brazil series, this new venture is, inarguably, her worst work ever. If you’ve read my review of her Isle of Dogs (Andy Brazil #3), then you know that is saying a lot!

As are her last several books, At Risk is written in a very distracting and unprofessional present tense. I found myself several times having to go back and reread passages that made no sense due to this annoyance. Imagine, if you will, trying to listen to a “Valley Girl” telling a story, and you’ll understand the feeling.

Story wise, At Risk is 212 page skeletal examination of the police work of Winston Garano, sometimes called Win, sometimes Geronimo. He’s a Detective with the Massachusetts State Police, assigned to the DA’s office in Boston. He’s a self-loathing wunderkind from the wrong part of Boston who wears top name fashions such as Hugo Boss and Prada, that he buys second hand at the thrift stores and constantly ruminates that he failed to get into Harvard like the rich kids.

He’s been on assignment at the National Forensics Academy in Knoxville, Tennessee, but his boss, the egomaniacal Monique Lamont has summoned him back early to investigate a case she is certain will land her the Governor’s office. As part of her new program which she calls “At Risk” she has decided that the best way to get additional funding for the new state forensics lab, as well as make her a shoe-in politically, is to put Win on a 20 year old cold case. A cold case that took place in another state. Knoxville, Tennessee, to be specific.

Never mind that a Massachusetts DA has no authority to investigate a case from out of state. Never mind that she has called Win BACK from Knoxville to tell him about the case. Never mind that any public official who so grossly misused their office and the public’s money like this would be stoned in the town square. Leave all reality and logic and common sense aside; this is still a terrible story told in the worst possible, hurried and assuming fashion.

At Risk reads like an outline for a story proposal, not a fully thought out manuscript. The characters are as thin as paper, and I often had to look back to see who Cornwell was talking about as she would refer to them by first name one moment and last name the next. You never get to actually care about any of them, though Monique Lamont comes close to being as detestable as she can in such a poor telling. I found Lamont annoying because she was a mean bitch, not because she was a well constructed antagonist. There is very little back story on any of them, and when a bit is tossed in here and there, it seems like another distraction; the flyer stuck under your windshield wiper that you forgot to remove before you began driving.

I am seriously saddened by the decline of Cornwell’s writing. Her first nine Scarpetta novels were excellent, deeply researched, and masterfully constructed. From Postmortem, right up to Black Notice, she wove intricate, albeit dark tales with vivid characters and detailed settings. After that, her writing style changed drastically and her stories fell apart in ever increasing chaos. From Mona Lisa to a kindergartener’s crayon drawings.

I still highly recommend her early work, but anything written after about 1999 will disappoint. Don’t bother with the Win Garano or the Andy Brazil books at all.