From Publishers Weekly
Bestseller Cornwell's 15th novel to feature Dr. Kay Scarpetta (after 2005's
Predator) delivers her trademark grisly crime scenes, but lacks the coherence and emotional resonance of earlier books. Soon after relocating to Charleston, S.C., to launch a private forensics lab, Scarpetta is asked to consult on the murder of U.S. tennis star Drew Martin, whose mutilated body was found in Rome. Contradictory evidence leaves Scarpetta, the Italian carabinieri and Scarpetta's lover, forensic psychologist Benton Wesley, stumped. But when she discovers unsettling connections between Martin's murder, the body of an unidentified South Carolina boy and her old nemesis, the maniacal psychiatrist Dr. Marilyn Self, Scarpetta encounters a killer as deadly as any she's ever faced. With her recent switch from first- to third-person narration, Cornwell loses what once made her series so compelling: a window into the mind of a strong, intelligent woman holding her own in a profession dominated by men. Here, the abrupt shifts in point of view slow the momentum, and the reader flounders in excessive forensic minutiae.
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From AudioFile
Theres no faulting the messenger in Patricia Cornwells latest thriller. Actress Mary Stuart Masterson renders the latest adventure of forensic pathologist Dr. Kay Scarpetta quite perfectly. What Masterson cant do is save the novel, a pale imitation of a once robust franchise. Masterson breathes life into the colorful cast of characters that inhabit the Scarpetta world, giving each one a distinct personality. Ostensibly the book is about the murder of a 16-year-old tennis star by The Sandman. After a maddening series of subplots, hes captured in a couple sentences. It happens so fast this listener thought hed missed something. Either this is a terrible abridgment, or this series is dead. M.S. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine--
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