A very unusual book. I didn’t much like any of the characters, but I was intrigued about the solution to the mystery. I can see that Kay Scarpetta has a professionalism and integrity that commands respect. But she doesn’t attract me as a character; also, she loves her niece, Lucy. The others—Marino, Benton, Eise, Rudy, the abominable Dr Marcus—are all hard to like. And Lucy: I must confess, I was more for than against the killer’s desire to have her removed from the world. Perhaps predictably, the resolution happened too fast for my liking. I may read another Scarpetta if I happen to find one in my father-in-law’s hand-me-down books. I won’t be buying any.

Interesting how in the last couple of books, it was Teun who was starting this new company, and now then only mention Lucy. Where did Henri come from?? She’s a cop? She’s an actress? She’s a psychopath? I’m so confused. Why don’t Benton and Kay just talk to each other, do they really need all these secrets?

3.5

I loved this book. It is obvious that the author put a lot of thought into the story line. As the different characters begin to take shape, the author does a great job blending everything together...all the way to the end. Definitely worth reading.

Cornwells 13th Scarpetta novel has the Doc returning to Richmond with ex detective Marino and the scene of her unceremonious firing 5 years before to consult on a case in which a child has died and no one can figure out why?

Full disclosure I’m sticking with 4 stars but I’m not sure if that’s because I really loved being back in the Scarpetta universe after such a long break but I settled back into the characters like an old shoe, already looking forward to Scarpetta 14.

Dr. Scarpetta returns for her (lucky) 13th installment, with a case that has her return to Richmond to assist the Chief Medical Examiner. Newly liberated Marino accompanies her and they receive a less than warm welcome. A girl is deemed to have been murdered, but the circumstances surrounding it do not match up with what the mother is telling authorities and no one can determine what's been going on. While receiving the persona non grata treatment, both Scarpetta and Marino determine that something is very much off with the overly emotional mother, only to discover a secret that chills them to the bone. Meanwhile, Lucy is running The Last Precinct in Florida and is trying to protect a new recruit from a stalker whose invaded her life. How do the cases relate and who is this murderer/stalker that is causing so many issues? When everything comes together, Scarpetta cannot help but be flabbergasted.

Cornwell continues her third person narrative, which works as two stories flow simultaneously. It is interesting to see the more than Scarpetta view of the overall story and this narrative diversion has not cause me any concern. I am enjoying the ongoing character building and development, especially with all the changes Cornwell keeps introducing to the stories, yet longtime series regulars can still pine for their beloved foundational characters.

Kudos Madam Cornwell on another wonderful thriller. I am eager to keep pushing ahead!

ما حداني لشراء وقراءة هذه الرواية هي حبي لكل من يكتب في الطب الشرعي..
وخاصة روايات المبدعة ..
كاثي رايكس .. وبطلتها د. تمب برينان ..

ولكن باتريشيا كورونويل لن تصل لمستوى كاثي رايكس..
لا أعني أن الرواية لم تكن جيدة ..
ولكنها لم تكن جيدة بشكل كافي بنظري...
فلا شيء يضاهي د. تمب..
ولا مغامراتها ...

I'm so glad that with this book, there was a return to an engaging and interesting storyline that wasn't so far beyond belief. I found the last few books so ludicrous that they were almost irritating to read. In this book, Dr. Scarpetta is once again doing some actual morgue work and investigation. I still don't like the switch to third-person and was hoping it wasn't permanent, but Cornwell does a slightly better job with it in this book. Being written in third-person, it still feels a bit colder to me than earlier books written in first-person, but at least there wasn't as much confusion this time (and when things were unclear due to the third-person perspective, I believe it was intentional this time around). I have hope that the next books in the series will be a return to this more down-to-Earth type of storytelling instead of the downward trajectory the series had been on with the last two or three books that preceded this book.

As I recounted in my review of the book after this, Predator, I checked that book out of the library thinking it might be the one about which I'd read a review saying that finally the Scarpetta series was improving again, but after realizing what a piece of tripe that work is, checked out this one instead, as I'd initially been going to do.

It started out more promising than Predator - for one thing, it began with an actual mystery! - but quickly got bogged down in Lucy's personal problems. Back when I used to voraciously read the Scarpetta series, I remember generally liking Lucy's character, but like so many of the main characters in this series, she has become less likable with age (or perhaps she'd still be likable if she were written in a better way). So many things bother me about the series now that didn't used to bug me, and I'm not sure whether they were always there and I just let them slide before because the books were generally well-written and fast-paced, or if the fact that the writing has gotten markedly worse includes these items. For one thing, in both Predator and this book, Cornwell is obsessed with "perfect" looking people, and the characters (and the narration) deride anyone that doesn't look like Cornwell's (and/or the characters') definition of "perfect." Personally I don't know a single actual real person that looks like what the books define as "perfect," and I find this obsession obnoxious.

Secondly, I'm finding Lucy's character extremely obnoxious now. In the span of two pages a bit through the book (about 100 pages in), she refers to one character as "the Hispanic" and to her father as "my crazy Latino biological father" while referring to her white mother as "Hopefully, not from my mother..." At this point, I simply lost all patience or sympathy with Lucy's character in this book, and lost even more respect for Cornwell. I can't imagine either Cornwell or Lucy saying, "the white" or "my crazy white biological mother" (indeed, her books now only cite race when the person is a person of color), but somehow it is OK to refer to a person solely or primarily by their race or ethnicity if they are a person of color. It would be different if it seemed like Cornwell was deliberately writing Lucy as a racist or Scarpetta as weight-obsessed (perhaps with an eating disorder?), but it seems that in Cornwell's new world of the novels, things like these are "just the way people act" and considered quite fine behavior.

Since Lucy's storyline makes up a huge part of this book (from what it seems so far), at this point I am trying to decide between skipping the sections with her (and the related plot with Benton and Lucy's girlfriend) and only reading the sections with Scarpetta and Marino, or just returning the book without even bothering to read the rest of it. After two disappointing books in a row, and incredibly sloppy writing, I don't believe I will be reading another Cornwell book. It's too bad, as her writing used to be gripping and I once liked the characters of Scarpetta, Benton, and Lucy (though I never was particularly fond of Marino, as was the case for many early fans).

[See my review of Predator for my evisceration of that horrendous book.:]

I really want to say that I liked this book. Although the makings of a great story are there within its pages, it's ultimately held back by a lack of any real consequence or outcome. This is the first story in the Scarpetta series where I really feel we got a buddy cop dynamic with Scarpetta and Marino this time around. It actually surprised me in the first couple of pages when Marino had accompanied Scarpetta on the case back in Virginia from the jump instead of getting involved later as he's always done. I was excited at the idea that these two were finally headlining a case together in a stronger way.

That being said, I'm assuming from the last book on that Cornwell has ultimately decided to continue with the multiple perspectives. It's not a bad thing, but there are times where we know exactly what happened and how it happened because the killer in this case has already told us through either his actions or inner dialogue which took the fun of guessing out. I will say at first I was intrigued because Edgar Allen Pogue's chapter came out of nowhere and I had no idea how he would connect to the main story.

Which is where my frustration comes from. I don't understand this fear it seems that Cornwell has in not making every investigation going on in the story connected in some way, shape or form. Not everything that Scarpetta's doing has to relate to everything that Lucy is doing or even Benton. Granted, this one made more sense than others but seriously you mean to tell me that that was the reason Pogue does what he does. I get mental illness playing a factor in it, but there had to be some other way to motivate this killer than what it ultimately ended up being.

Also, the last 20 pages of this book had me so confused as to how anything would wrap up. There was no "final battle" as it seems every Scarpetta book has had up until this point and I truly thought she was going to continue the story in the next novel. For it to have ended the way it did left a bitter taste in my mouth. There's something about the story that drew me in and don't get me wrong I finished still with a desire to read the rest, but this is without a doubt one of the weakest standalone Scarpetta novels there are.

There's a lot of wasted potential here and I can only hope that it gets better from here.

Actual rating: 2.5/5 Stars

I have a feeling that Scarpetta's unnatural reaction to Benton's "resurrection" will haunt me until the last page of these series...

TRACE by Patricia Cornwell (the 13th book of the Kay Scarpetta adventures, an audio Russian edition in this case) was a nice distraction from my usual non-fiction books. Through several plotlines- one with Kay Scarpetta and her constant companion Pete Marino, another with Lucy Farinelli and Benton Wesley - TRACE shows an investigation of several deaths and assaults in Virginia and Florida that, at first sight, seem unrelated. But as we, detective story lovers know, in most cases, unrelated deaths lead to one killer...

I rate the book 2.5 stars rounded to 3. The sudden ending (I listened to it twice because I thought I missed a piece) took away 0.5 points. There was no suspense, no catch-and-chase moments. A blurb to a Russian edition that differs considerably from the English version was the biggest plot spoiler of all times. It reveals the information readers should find out themselves. For example, the connection between the deaths. I still remember solid hardcovers of the series in Russian, with prices far exceeding low-quality paperback volumes sold on every corner in every kiosk. Why editors of the Russian edition decided to change the blurb is beyond my understanding.

TRACE is not the worst yet not the brightest detective story I've read. I can't call it a thriller though because characters' squabbles take up the most of the book.