Give me more of that!

I read or listen to books to escape these everyday pitfalls of life, not to be emersed in them for endless hours.

The storyline has always been dark, I realize that and that part is appealing.

I guess what I am referring to is the overall glib mood that everyone seems to have, not one main character is remotely happy at any point in the story.

The ending seems disjointed from the rest of the story when they all seem to come together at the end to eat a roomful of food that Scarpetta cooked.

Benton was insufferable and I’m almost shipping Marino/Scarpetta despite he assault her in previous books, that’s how much I can’t understad why Benton and Kay are together.

And Lucy it’s unbelievable.

And Marino totally needs to take Benton down a notch or two. He is by far the most human in this book.

I just got a copy of Postmortem and this is the last time I expend a penny on Cornwell if the book is as bad as this one.

But I do not believe in being critical without offering some positive thought. Why don’t you (author and editor), get several random regular Cornwell readers (not your bosom buddies) to read a new book while still in manuscript form? That might help avoid another piece of useless junk like this one.

As has been conjectured this does not look like Ms. Cornwell wrote a lot of this book – from the way you get jerked around there must be ghost writers involved. I agree with what CHRIS HILL (Dec 9) says, especially his comment about it being dross. Perfect description.

As MARIE (Sept 19) states, “this is crap”. I also agree, this is my last Cornwell book. I wouldn’t read another one even if it was free.

Kathy Reichs is much more interesting and enjoyable.

The book should be renamed the “quotation factor” because most of the book is dialogue and meetings. I felt like saying “blah blah blah” and I’ve had enough of the listed sentences. Sentences mostly made by Benton that mention one thing, but also list several other related things. I felt like Benton was rambling in most of his scenes, just to hear himself talk. And often the dialogue would jump from character to character, but only revealing which character was speaking AFTER the quotes. So you would read the words, picturing a certain character speaking, only to find that someone else was speaking, and that their inflection was a different tone than you had earlier guessed. I would have to reread those spoken sentences at times.

This was not a mystery at all but a book of several meetings over 24 hours that so happens to solve 2 serial murders, a string of serial bank robberies, an attempted bombing, a suicide and bring down the mob all in that same 24 hours.

Way too much hooplah and not enough substance.

The characters have stalled and no one ever has a deep conversation in PC’s books, just a collection of people thinking thoughts about each other and no one talking….

Maybe it’s because the timeframe of the last two books has been just a couple of days. I still don’t believe that people can accomplish as much in 24 hours as they are written.

And is it just me, or is the typeface more dense and the book just so closely set and in such long chapters, that it’s just plain hard to read.

Sorry Patricia Cornwell – I was a HUGE fan of your earlier novels, but you lost me in the last 2 or 3…….