Maggie M. - , reviewed on 10/26/2012 + 400 more book reviews

Back in the day, I used to read all of Patricia Cornwell's books until she started to get off track of the actual murder mystery and more into the romance, etc., and then I stopped reading her. After many years, I thought I'd try her again to see if she's gotten any better. Sad to say, I think she's gotten worse, if that's possible. For instance, there is a scene where she's back in Virginia, in the morgue where there are bodies being autopsied. One is a very old man and another is an obese woman. Cornell goes on and on using derogatory and disrespectful terms to describe the obese woman, even during times when it's obviously NOT necessary; yet she doesn't give the same negative or insulting comments about the old man, whereas she certainly could have...very easily. Cornwell's prejudice against large/overweight people really screams out in this book. Whereas I'm an average-sized person, I know and love a variety-of-sized and aged people, so this really ticks me off.

Alas, I finished listening to this book on CD, which, even though it is NOT abridged, had plenty of...skipped...areas that didn't make sense or follow the logical path. I found myself backing up on the CD and listening to certain parts again, asking myself, "What did I miss?" and yet it was never there. It leaves the reader wondering how in the world did we jump from one scene to the next.

What COULD have been a good story and thriller turned into plain old crap with Cornwell's biases and bad writing, not to mention the poor editing job. I will never try Patricia Cornwell again, which is too bad, as years and years ago when she first started out, she was quite good. Perhaps the fame and fortune attacked her ego? Oh well, there are so many other, better authors out there to explore!

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