i haven't finished yet but I should really just stop buying these books. I was convinced that (at least 5?) some books ago she changed her writing style and it totally turned me off. Then I felt like a few books ago (2?) she changed back to normal. Yet, I feel her characters have just gone off the deep end. I can't stand any of them anymore. Marino turns worse every book, Lucy becomes almost total background and into such a superwoman that she's just completely unbelievable anymore. Now, in this book I have to constantly listen to her inner turmoil over Benton. Ugh, just shut up already!! ( )

I hd minimal expectations and was still disapppintes, especially by the ending. ( )

Every time I finish the latest Scarpetta book I swear them off. But I keep getting them. Thankfully this was less annoying this the last few. I swear it feels like the author delights in making her characters unhappy. ( )

Ah, where to begin? Same old crap about no one talking to Scarpetta, she feels betrayed, Marino is pretty much absent in this entire book, the dysfunctionality persists, Luci's home life is convoluted and murky, Scarpetta laments how no one is forthright to her, the first part of the story about the "bone bed" is seemingly forgotten for the next few hundred pages in favor of a story about a body found in the ocean...there is WAY too much ado made about a trial...and then the last 20 pages seems like the old Scarpetta, with lots of action, lots LESS talking and nebulous stuff...and then slam, bang, it ends just like that. I had to go back a few pages to see exactly what character she was talking about during the ending...I was like "what did I miss?"

I think Cornwell's talent is taking a new direction, and I sure miss the old days when her books were about solving murders, not pages and pages of characters being obtuse, looooong drawn out forensic stuff that is actually boring, and the characters speaking in non sequiter. I also found the discussion of Twitter convoluted and bizarre, as I kept trying to make sense of what they were saying, thinking it was germane to the plot...but it wasn't. Actually, nothing in this book is germane to anything else.

Read it if you must.

The best part for me, actually, was her Greyhound Sock and her newly adopted cat, a Scottish Fold. Cornwell has managed to get my favorite animals into her stories, if nothing else. ( )

confused....it kept my attention for 400 something pages, then I was confused on who the person was who did it?? great lead up, strange end! ( )