Nor her best but entertaining enough for a quick holiday read

I loved the Scarpetta series, so have continued to try more Cornwell novels. Following my vast disappointment when starting the Brazil series, I thought I'd switch and try the Garano series instead. It was OK. Some characters still grated but I did find some of the plotline drew me in to want to keep reading. I might try the next book as well and see if this series develops further.

This book did not feel like a Patricia Cornwell novel. I've read lots of her Scarpetta series and have always enjoyed the story. The main character, Winston Garano, is intriguing but what was happening around him either was confusing or I just didn't care about. I felt like I was missing parts of the story.

‘At Risk’ was given to me by a friend. It had an interesting synopsis, and Patricia Cornwell has a reputation for being good at her craft, so I gave it a go:

Win Garano, a crime investigator, is called home from the U.S where he is immersed in a course at a forensics academy. His female boss, Lamont, a district attorney, wants him to work on an unsolved 20 year old murder. But Garano finds that Lamont is driven by personal interests. She’s planning to run for governor and uses a new crime initiative called ‘At Risk’ - using the motto ‘Any crime, any time’. If they were successful at solving the 20 year old murder it would make her office look good. She hoped it would win her votes and she would achieve her political ambitions.

The premise of the story had a lot of potential, but unfortunately, I found it disappointing.

As the story unfolded it became confusing. It was so complex it was hard to follow. The convoluted, labyrinth of a plot, finally ended with what I thought was a contrived denouement.

What should have been a thriller held no suspense for me. I read it to the end because I was curious to know who the perpetrator of the murder was.

One of my worst reads EVER! The story line is stupid. The background mystery is stupid. The foreground plot is stupid. Horribly written. It was a total waste of time.

Here is my review of the #2 book, it is the same.

I read the first Garano book "At Risk" and was thoroughly disappointed, but I bought both the books online together, and I did like the character Winston Garano and thought surely she would flesh him out a little more in the second book. Unless you like reading extremely skeletal outlines of what a story will be when it is written, don't bother getting this book.

I am a huge Cornwell/Scarpetta fan. The last several books of the series really weren't very good. And the last one I read was really pretty bad and rather disjointed. This new series is worse. Much worse. As in horrible. It is poorly written, the characters besides Garano and his grandmother are not even likable/interesting. It is seriously like an outline written by a high school student with a good idea but no writing skills at all. If it had not been in a large font and had been edited at all it would have been about 100 pages long.

I cannot repeat enough how truly bad these two books were.

If I didn't know Cornwell wrote this book, I would have never guessed that she was the author. It didn't seem like her kind of writing at all, I've read the two books in this series and I still hate every single character. Well, except Garanos nana, but that's it.

Crap. First of all, it uses the rather unprofessional format of present tense grammar. I'm supposing the author intended this to give the story a sense of immediacy and urgency; it just made it sound like it was being related by a Valley-Girl.
The story plodded, large sections of what I would have considered important action are skipped over, scenes jump around with no sense or reason, and it was just plain not exciting.

Reminder: Just because something gets on the Best Seller's list does not mean it has any quality, whatsoever.

Biracial male detective and hardboiled female DA do a complicated dance with assorted other characters. Quick pace, short book. OK read

Nunca había leído nada de esta autora antes, así que pensé que sería una buena oportunidad para explorar. El desarrollo de los personajes es lo suficientemente buena y la historia fluye sin problemas, aunque parece ir a la deriva en algunos puntos, como si no hubiera nada que la mantuviera unida y ningún ímpetu para llevar la historia a áreas no previstas.

Es una historia lenta al principio, pero luego los personajes se vuelven lo suficientemente interesantes como para saber cómo termina. El personaje principal, Winston Garano, mantuvo mi interés a medida que las líneas de la historia se entretejían y conducían a atar todos los cabos sueltos al final del libro. No es una novela policiaca pesada, solo con los suficientes giros para que sea entretenida, pero no tantos como para ser confusa. Definitivamente me ha gustado lo suficiente como para querer leer más libros de esta autora.

Meh. I listened to the audio version of this book. I actually have the book but never got around to reading it, i saw the audio version in the library and needed something to pass the time while driving so i grabbed it, thinking... Cool, i will finally get to see what that book is about.
Well... Meh. It was mediocre at best. if I had read it rather than listened to it I might even be more harsh in reviewing this, sorry Patricia Cornwell, but it just wasn't that good of a storyline, in was dry and the characters were unlikable, i see where she was going with Win saving Miss Dog, and protecting Susie from her dead-beat husband, yeah okay so you want me to think he is a nice guy.. okay... I liked his Gram okay too but it just didn't draw me in, Win seemed underdeveloped, and Monique seemed cliched and a stereo-type of a boss who is a self serving ambitious bish. Come on, please i realise you want her to be multi-sided as well, but it just didn't work. I never really felt any connection to any of the characters. Maybe it was because it was such a short book... maybe that is why it just didn't work well. The characters seemed to cookie cutter stiff. Maybe the narrators voice provoked some dislike as well, there were times that it was hard to distinguish betwen characters, there was not enogh clarity between the characters from the narrator.

I am getting rid of the hard copy of the book I have and i already returned the audio version to the library. It did serve its purpose, it burned some time while driving, it was not really deep so i didn't have to really concentrate , it was what i consider a beach read... a book you just don't care if you forget at the hotel when you check out, certainly not a book you would seek out at the lost and found. Lol

This was the first time I've read a Patricia Cornwell novel. It was a page turner. I liked the main character, Win, and his devoted friend Sykes. The violence was expected and disturbing- it is a forensic crime novel, after all. I was a little confused by the plot- not keeping names straight all the time. I really liked Win's grandmother and his devotion to her and the dog he rescues, - so great character development of the good guys.
I think it was well written and I will look for more books from Patricia Cornwell when I want a quick, distracting read.

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.