Customer Reviews

At Risk

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(20)
2 star:		(29)
1 star:		(155)

 

 

I don't usually write negative reviews even when I don't like a particular book. But in this case, I have to make an exception. As usual, I rushed out to get At Risk just as soon as the local bookstore opened with it (sorry about that Amazon....in the case of Cornwell books, I usually just can't wait!). Finished it in a couple of hours and felt like throwing it against the wall.

It's a real stretch to believe that the same person who wrote Cruel and Unusual, The Body Farm, From Potter's Field and Unnatural Exposure could have written this book. The dust jacket says it was originally written as a fifteen-part serial for a magazine, and it shows. Very little plot continuity with disjointed leaps all over the place; little, if any, meaningful character development; even the usual sterling scientific minutiae we've come to expect from a Cornwell book is superficial and mostly unexplained.

I have been a loyal fan of Cornwell's since I first stumbled across Postmortem. I even enjoyed her efforts in the Andy Brazil series that most everyone else hated. But in all honesty, At Risk seems like she felt obligated to get another book out in a hurry and just threw this one together. The dust jacket says "...this is the master working at the top of her game." If this is the top of Cornwell's game she's at risk of losing her legions of fans.

Not worth the time or money, folks.

At Risk is an interesting novel. It is much shorter than Patricia Cornwell's previous books, with new characters within the medical examiner/police framework. However, in this case, the mystery story is weak, the characters forgettable, and the motivations and plot are, frankly, unclear. It seems as if this is the prelude for a deeper, richer story, not a complete story in itself. The wordsmithing isn't quite up to my expectations of her standard work. All in all, this book reads like a rush job, an editorial demand that a book, whether ready or not, had to come out prior to the start of the summer reading season.

I'm not the biggest fan of Patricia Cornwell's more recent work. Body Farm, to me, was her best book. Since Body Farm, the characters in her books (and their behaviors) are getting more bizarre, as are the crimes.

Let's hope Cornwell's stories improve at the same rate our crime-fighting technologies advance.... quickly. This book needs to go back into the incubator... it's not ready to hatch.

First of all let me say that I loved Patricia Cornwell and the Scarpetta series was very addicting. I was very excited about this new book At Risk, well not anymore. I think she must have just been dumped or went through a tramatic time in her life for her to just dump her fans like this. From the moment I opened the "official" hardback which by the way is book club size, I was disgusted. The margins are so wide and the text is double spaced, I felt like I was about to read a third grader's Goosebumps book. That would have been okay had the book been about 750 pages. However, you just know if the publisher has to space it out just to make it 212 pages, this is not going to be good or have any suitable detail. Lukily I opened the book before wasting my money. I sat down at the book store and read the whole book in an hour and half. The conclusion: Cornwell- maybe someone needs to study your brain and figure out what went wrong with it like they did with the criminals in PREDATOR because something isn't working anymore up there!

Having worked at a library for more years than I care to tell, I have seen Cornwell's novels consistently snatched from the shelves the moment they arrived. She has been on my "to read" list for ages and this book seemed like a good way to get acquainted with her work.

However, after reading about two-thirds of the book, I couldn't take any more. Nobody likes anybody. Heck, they don't even like themselves! Now, I'm no Pollyanna, but shouldn't SOMEONE have SOME kind of positive interaction or relationship with SOMEBODY?

Don't get me wrong - any good tale needs tension and adversarial relationships, but an entire volume of insecure, mean-spirited internal dialogue is not my idea of a good read. I don't even care enough to finish the book.

I can't help thinking that this author must be better than this, or she wouldn't be so popular. Maybe once I get the taste of "At Risk" out of my mouth, I'll try one of her others.

I've been a huge fan of Ms Cornwell for a long time, and I have a hard time believing that the author who wrote the first nine Scarpetta books is the same person who wrote Blowfly, Trace, Predator, and now, At Risk. The last of Ms Cornwell's books that I actually purchased was Blowfly (big mistake!), and since then I will not spend a cent on one of her books until I've read a copy from the library. When I first read the jacket on At Risk, I was very surprised and pleased to see that it wasn't another Scarpetta novel - all her characters in that series had become much too bizzare, pathetic, or just plain unlikeable - and had great hopes that she had written something new and fresh. However, At Risk is no better (and probably worse in many ways) than her last three. It actually doesn't start out too badly (not brilliant, but the characters and plot have some potential), but then, just as the plot and suspense are rising, you start the next chapter and find out that the detectives have it all solved! The story has no rhythm, continuity, or logic to it. The last half of the book reads like it was thrown together in about an hour. Very disappointing. I'm still hoping that Ms Cornwell will write another wonderful thriller (particularly if she continues to concentrate on fresh material and forget about the Scarpetta series) - after all, that talent must still be in there somewhere! In the meantime, I won't waste my money and will be using my library card more.

I won't re-hash the plot of this book for two reasons: Others have done so and there isn't much of one. And what a shame. Such a talented writer, yet such a disappointment.

Oh yes, the book is well written technically, despite the author's continued experimentation with present tense. But this plot doesn't work. The characters are cold, except maybe for Nana, a bit player, and the juxtapositon of two crimes, one in Tennessee and the other in Boston, makes no sense. The book reads like it was put together for a serial, which of course it was. But it reads like each installment was written just before it was published, so there are continuity lapses, dead ends, and very little exploration of characters and motivations. Why are Win and Sykes interested in each other despite such a wide age gap? What do they talk about? How'd they meet? Why were they attracted to each other? None of this is explained. This book has the look of one the author was contracted to provide but which never captured her imagination. Sorry, but it just doesn't work. I doubt Patricia Cornewll will lose much of her following because of this book, because I suspect she'll repair it with her next one, leaving this one for the roadside bin. But the response to this book should be a wake-up call: No one can disrespect his or her readers for long and expect to retain them. Hopefully, Patricia will pay us back for our loyalty with a real corker for her next one. But until her next one is out, forget this one. It's just not worth it.

This book reads like it was written over a long, boring weekend. The plot is convoluted and the characters are shallow and forgettable, except for one of the main character's grandmother, Nana, and Miss Dog, the blind and deaf stray.

The book jacket contends that "sparks fly, traps spring, twists abound..." This is definitely not the "master working at the top of her game."

My mother in law and I have always been fans of Patricia Cromwell's work. We went out and bought her books based on her name alone. I am afraid that going forward I will be forced to come here and read the reviews before I shell out the money.

I love the Scarpetta books, but I had to force myself to finish this one. The plot was disjointed, and the use of the English language was atrocious. I can't believe she published this. It is absolutely not up to par. If you're going to waste your time on this book, get it from a library so you don't waste your money as well.

While I'm a long time Patricia Cornwell fan, I agree with many reveiwers that her last few efforts bare no comparison with her earlier works such as "Postmortem" or "Cause of Death". It's genuinely hard to believe the same person wrote "At Risk", even considering that "At Risk" originated as a serialized novel. I would have expected Cornwell and her editor(s) to have developed the story considerably more than they did before publishing it as a hardcover novel with a correspondingly high price tag.

"At Risk" is a very short book that is double spaced to make it appear more substantial than it is. More importantly, "At Risk" lacks depth. Remember how Cornwell used to describe the details of characters lives, right down to things like how they prepared their meals and their internal thoughts, etc... That detail and descriptiveness is entirely missing here. Again, I would understand a serialized work being somewhat lighter in style due to it's audience, but Cornwell and her editors did her fans a disservice in publishing "At Risk" in this form.