Customer Reviews

Predator

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(23)
3 star:		(41)
2 star:		(89)
1 star:		(273)

 

 

I've been reading Patricia Cornwell's Scarpetta novels on and off for some time now. There was a time when these stories were innovative, and even groundbreaking in their introduction of the strong female lead into the serial killer, suspense genre. But something happened along the way. I don't know if Cornwell changed her story lines for her own reasons or due to bad advice, but rather than forensic suspense the stories turned into adventures in dysfunctional families. Scarpetta became a flaming codependent trying to mother Lucy, whose goal in life was staying in trouble. And Pete Marino, never the most likeable of characters became increasingly large, loud and obnoxious. To put it bluntly, the killers were often the most attractive characters in the stories.

Cornwell long ago fell off my 'buy in hardback' list. But when I picked up Predator the blurb sounded pretty good, and I decided to give Cornwell another try. The story finds Kay Scarpetta, Pete Marino, and a whole cast of crimestoppers working at the National Forensic Academy, the institute Lucy created so that she could work as a free agent. All isn't well at the Academy, strange events and thefts are interspersed with intense personality conflicts and mistrust until it is obvious that a crisis is brewing.

In the meantime a subtle series of deaths and disappearances come to light that seem to link Basil Jenrette, an imprisoned serial killer who has become the subject of Benton Wesley's research into the deviant mind, with killers down in Florida where the academy is. The connections surface painstakingly slowly after in depth forensic work. This is the formula which made Cornwell a success, and I hoped for a return to the Scarpetta of the early stories.

Unfortunately, that was not to be. Most of the suspense is about which character will have an argument with another, not with the forensic work. Kay Scarpetta literally shotguns the research work, creating a haphazard web of clues and red herrings. If it wasn't for Pat Cornwell's determination to give the whole story away by continually inviting the reader into the mind of the killer (and a very boring killer he is, by the way) the plot would have been almost impossible to follow. It is almost as if Cornwell wrote a bunch of short episodes and then put them in a semblance of order without any effort at continuity. I'll probably never know whether the ending was intended to be a cliff hanger or if the story was abandoned to its loose ends.

It's a shame that this series has been allowed to degenerate the way it has. Cornwell seems to be convinced that if she cannot breath new life into her characters she can succeed by making them so pitiable that the reader will succumb to guilt and read the yet another book. My recommendation is that, under no circumstances buy the hardback. Wait for the paperback if you will, although you may find the time best spent reading something else.

Any Cornwell work is better than some other books, but...
I have NEVER liked the way Marino has been handled in the entire series - now he is like a caricature- before he was street wise liasion to Scarpetta, then he blew up to a large smoking drinking person who had health problems, and now he is aloof big muscle bound biker guy who is at odds with Scarpetta and knows something funny is going on with the misinformation -
The series and this novel does not have the BITE it did - if you would reread the first books that made a wave in the thriller genre you will understand what I mean.
We've gone through a lot with the regulars of this series - they have not progressed in the way the folks who pay hardback prices would like. Not so sure I will pay hardback prices again for this series again. and that's sad.

Do you long for the days when Scarpetta lived in a gorgeous house, which she designed and which was described in intimate detail to the reader? Do you miss imagining the smells of the fabulous meals she would prepare in her gourmet kitchen? Ever think back fondly to the time when Lucy was a totally kick ass cop, who just happened to be a lesbian but that was really a side story and not very important? And it was only mentioned when the story required an explanation of how she came to shoot her first lover? And she had normal love relationships like most people do, they just happened to be with women? And Benton was dashing and a workaholic like Scarpetta, and Marino was a salvagable sad sack but basically a good guy? And there could be animals that could walk through scenes and not be gratuitously tortured and killed just to show us that sociopaths pick animal victims as well as human victims?
Oh, yes. Yes I do.
You don't want to read her books if you miss that stuff. If, on the other hand, you like to see the world as a place where nobody can be trusted and people in power dream of necrophilia and everybody argues and makes bad choices in their lives and the descriptions of Italian food cooking are replaced by detailed accounts of the smells of bloated dead bodies, have I got a book for you...
It's just too much. I'm no stranger to the world that Scarpetta lives in. After 19 years in paramedicine I've seen alot of that stuff, but even I am sick of reading about it.
It's almost enough to make a person turn to Harlequin romances.
This book was more uneven than the others, with subplots that fizzled out and so much jumping from scene to scene that I lost track of who was who. Yuck.

I remember loving the early Scarpetta books. Flanked by an array of interesting characters, she was definitely front and center in every story (as was proven by the fact that the books were written in the first person). She was a capable medical examiner, but also a skilled cook (Cornwell's delicious descriptions of Kay's Italian recipes in her gourmet kitchen were so vivid, you could almost smell the food), and a woman with a sense of humor. She and her sidekicks (Marino, Lucy, Benton, etc.), though surrounded by tragedy and death, did have happy moments, and were capable of being happy at times.

Then something happened a couple of books ago: after a tired plotline about a European "werewolf" which spanned a couple of books, the point of view changed to third person, the story became much more of an ensemble cast with Scarpetta as one of the characters, and everything became permeated by a depressing, unhappy, dreary atmosphere that sucked the happiness out of the characters, and turned them into automatons who did nothing else but work, argue, and deal with death. Gone was any "off-time", sense of humor, or even sense of hope. Gone was also any sense of realism, as every new books showed Lucy's fortune more and more outlandish with mansions, academies, motorcycles, helicopters, improbable stunts and toys of all kinds.

This time we're asked to believe Lucy's fortune has started a private "academy" that supports police investigation. But what happened to Lucy's previous endeavors, The Last Precinct? What about other characters present in the previous book that have been dropped without so much as a mention? And how about the new ones in this book whom we are asked to know about without ever having heard about them (when Johnny Swift was being talked about as if I was supposed to know who he was, I swear I thought I skipped a book)? How much time has passed between Trace and Predator? It's really hard to tell.

Let's move on to the story. It seems that we've traded the suspense and interesting crime scene investigations by Scarpetta's team of talented forensic scientists of the eralier novels, for incredibly gruesome, sick, twisted descriptions of tortured, mutilated, decomposing bodies, simply described for shock factor. I am not sure how someone comes up with twisted stuff like this, but I had to put the book down at one point when one of the villains (Jenrette) described how he blinded his victims. It was just too much. Perhaps Cornwell might want to consider subjecting herself to the Predator study? She should know better than to replace storytelling with pure guts/gore. Her readers are smarter than that. Blood and a truly convoluted plot line are not cutting it.

I used to love Patrica Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta, but as time goes on she has lost a plot in a big way. The relationship between Scarpetta / Lucy / Benton becomes gradually more disfunctional and bizzare. Marino has gone so far off the rails that I seriously expect to see that he is in fact a serial killer himself. These flaws could be excused if the plot was solid, but unfortunately even there we are let down. Once again Scarpetta, Lucy and Benton are all investigating different murders which bizzarrly are all coincidentally related (this has happened too many times before to be interesting), and the killer is once again playing a game that sets the main characters against one another.

My advice to a reader - don't waste your time reading this book, you've read all the component parts of the story in other Cornwell books.

My advice to Cornwell - go back to the original format of simple death investigation and quit slipping off into the realms of psychobabble

Amazon critics generally fall on the favorable side of the review curve, maybe because favorable ratings tend to get more positive responses. In this case (1.5 stars average) they are right on target. This is an appalling performance by a writer who used to know how to write believably, who used to know how to build suspense, and who used to know how to construct a plot. It all began to go downhill when "Silence of the Lambs" won all those Oscars and Cornwell decided she wanted a piece of the serial killer pie. The plots became increasingly outlandish, the characters became irritating, and the violence became nauseating. All these trends coalesce in "Predator" and Cornwell gives us the perfect storm of bad suspense fiction. I happened to check this out of the library a couple weeks after I read "The Ruins", which I thought was the worst suspense novel I ever read. Well, folks, we have a new contender.

Kay Scarpetta, Lucy, Marino, and Benton are back and as miserable as ever. Without any transition or explanation about what has passed since the last book, Lucy now owns a Forensic Academy where she employs Kay and Marino and where they teach others the tricks of their trade. Lucy is also upset about the death of a man we have never heard of before and it seems that somehow, because of him, she is sick. Kay and Benton's relationship is still on the rocks and they act as though it is a tedious chore to even try to make it work. Marino is miserable and depressed and not getting along at all with Kay. Haven't heard anything about a bad guy or a mystery yet? That's because the book centers almost completely around the foursome's pathetic lives with a mystery as a sidenote. The mystery isn't even very good and in the end is concluded in a very disappointing way.

Cornwell has completely lost her edge. It's not coming back. These books continue to get worse and worse. After being a huge fan of the series for so long it is sad for me to say goodbye, but buying these books is truly a waste of money. The characters continue to be miserable and not do anything to try to get better. The mysteries that the books used to be based around now play second fiddle to the characters pathetic interactions. The plot leaves many questions unanswered, but sadly, I don't really need them answered to leave this book behind.

I've been an avid reader of Patricia Cornwell since her first book. After the Last Precinct I made a pact with myself that I would not buy another hardback, but after reading the story line on the jacket of the book, I got suckered in "AGAIN". I let my guard down and gave in. What a mistake.

I can only say that if this were Patricia's first book, she could never develop the following that she has so terribly dissapointed over the past few years. In short, I feel like she is ripping off her loyal followers by continuing to produce this junk.

The most shameful thing though is how she has turned characters that we love into people that you wouldn't want to know, are glad you aren't related to and can barely stomach to read about.

Marino: He is now a complete joke. A bench-pressing, harley biker, hot head who seems to be constantly degraded by Kay Scarpetta.

Wesley Benton: For those of us that suffered through his supposed death and then read with aggitation the ridiculous way that Patricia Cornwell brought him back to life - I ask: Why bring him back at all Patricia? Just to have him marginalized and brow beat by Kay Scarpetta?

Lucy: What the heck is going on here. I understand she created some kind of software program that she sold to the government, but are we to believe she has the wealth of Bill Gates or something? She owns helicopters, humvee's, a fleet of airplanes (including pilots) and has started an academy similar to Quantico that she doesn't ever visit because she is too busy dealing with her sex addiction? Just ridiculous.

Kay Scarpetta: I actually think I don't like her anymore. I used to love how smart and capable she was. How her character relied and trusted the people close to her. Now she just seems like a loner who is angry all the time. The boss you hope you never have to work for.

Do yourself a favor and don't waste your money on this one. You'll be glad you passed.

After the excutiating excercise of finishing this preposterous literary effort (and I use the term loosely) much less paying for the priviledge, I speculated on what to do with the book. Not having any broken beds to prop up I considered another reviewer's suggestion of donating it to a library. No, that wouldn't work because it might be inadvertantly read by someone whose IQ is above their body temperature and do irreperable damage to any future inclination to read decent fiction. So the only logical solution is to quickly place 'Predator'in a recycling bin. Hence it's only redeeming value will be conversion to cardboard and perhaps in a future life be an Amazon shipping container that will deliver far more worthwhile reading material. In the spirit of the holiday season I wish Ms. Cornwell all the best, but please, NO MAS with future Scarpetta drivel.

This is my first Scarpetta book
I got it as a gift
As someone who loves CSI
I feel like I've been stiffed

I learned about the citrus blight
And super fast road bikes
Shrinks and spiders, prison mail
And food Scarpetta likes

A killer's getting his brain scanned
People are disappearing
Someone's out to ruin things
By boldly interfering

The plot is not believable
It can't be incidental
That all the major characters
Have gone completely mental

It's not a thrilling, easy read
It hops about like mad
It's not the worst I've ever read
But still, it's pretty bad



Amanda Richards, February 23, 2007