Patrica Cornwell

any fans out there? to get this thread started here's how i discovered her. my mom got a batch of books years ago. i think it was like back in the late 90's i think? anyways, the book in Question she got i forget where prolly goodwill i'm guessing cause they were used books, paperbacks. anyways the book in question is called "Cruel & Unusual' which is the 4th book in the series.

i picked him one day in i think high school. and thought about reading it than i saw it was part of a series and thought fuck i need to start at the beginning. no store carried the 1st book that i can remember, and i was never motivated enough well at all really to go looking for it at the libary either. sorry about my spelling, lol

anyways, i used to work at Burger King at this plaza and i ended up buying Point of Origin one of the later books from (1998) i think? it's i think the 10th book in the series. the plot got me interested enough to buy it. i just never got around to read it and i still haven't but i did buy it. a few years later we had a bookseller closing out here sadly.

i was in there one day with my mom and i was going through the isles the mystery section that is. man i miss bookseller sorry, anyways, i happend to find the 1st book there one day. and i think the 2nd Novel as well. for some reason i just couldn't get into the 1st book and i tried reading that thing for years. the book? Post Mortem.

and i picked it up last year i think at around this time actually, i actually got my mom into the series as well and had bought more books in the series as well. anyways she's like 3 or 4 books ahead of mine. i'm on Potters Field NOW which is the 6th book she's on Point of Origin which i think is the 10th. so she's a little farther ahead than me.

so i picked it up one day and it was slow ass book. it took me forever to get into it. nothing really happens in the 1st 90 pages or so. but i had only read the 1st chapter dozens of times so i kept at it. and thought it was a decent book. it was her 1st book and 1st books aren't always good hell a lot of times they are shit and badly written. Like my opinion about Carrie.

but to each their own i guess. anyways, the 2nd book i also tried reading a few times and just couldn't get into it again. and so i thought well i don't think i'm ready for that one just yet, so a a few months later i think? or whenever it was. i read 8 more books before i picked up the 2nd book Body of Evidence. and it's not a great book but it's better written i think. and i started to really enjoy the series and i read the 3rd book right after that. and well you get the idea that i slowly fell in love with the series. and i now own nearly all of them. some on paperback and others on hardback.

are there any fans out there? sorry about the long post here. when i start threads i have a habit of making theme long as fuck sorry about that.

I was a fan back in the day. I read the first 17 books. Some of the main plots were not as good as others, but I always enjoyed the back story and how the characters developed. I even have a few signed limited editions that were released. Then Port Mortuary came out. I read the first 50 pages and could not believe I was reading the same author. It was horrible. I haven't read any of her books since.

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Originally Posted by ELazansky

I was a fan back in the day. I read the first 17 books. Some of the main plots were not as good as others, but I always enjoyed the back story and how the characters developed. I even have a few signed limited editions that were released. Then Port Mortuary came out. I read the first 50 pages and could not believe I was reading the same author. It was horrible. I haven't read any of her books since.

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Interesting. I quit with Port Mortuary too. My neighbor gave it to me, as I had already read most of her books. I listened to the whole thing on audiobook and at the end decided no more. I did enjoy her older stuff though.

I read a couple of them but never could get into - but I did like her book where she built a case for the person she thought was Jack the Ripper.

the ones i have loved the most so far i think and i've only read 5 of her books so far to be fair. the ones i love the most are Cruel and Unusal i think it was? the 1st one with Temple Gault. and the one i'm on now i'm loving so far and it's like i said "Potters' Field. she's like any author she's got good ones, great ones and shitty ones. i'm reading them in order so i'm not up to Port Mortuary yet. by the way i forgot to add about Carrie that i now know it's not SK's 1st book but his 1st released book at the time and for many years i thought it was his 1st book and when i read it at the time i thought it was his 1st book. i have since learned i was wrong. it's not a big deal i just wanted to fix a mistake i made that's all.

i hope there are folks who still read her on here and like her. but i do understand that people stopped reading her at some point because they don't no longer like her either. i haven't read her other series yet but i'm sure i will at some point. i do have the (2002) book about Jack the Ripper i just haven't read it yet. i bought it last year i think it was?

i was just thinking how i know there was another one i really loved and turns out i was right, All That Remains the 3rd book in the series i really loved and i think was the book that made me really fall in love with the series. i may have enjoyed the 1st two books but i don't think they are the best books in the series, i read ones after that because i liked the characters and i wanted to see as anyone would what happens next? so my point so far i've loved 2 of the books in the series and if this one keeps being as it as i think it is. the one i'm in now it will mark the 3rd one that i love in the series. i hope the next one is even better but that's me being optimistic because that's not how it always turns out ya know?

going back to a website that i posted about Cruel & Unusual last year. i was wrong on my thoughts on it. i posted it started off Strong & maintained that throughout most of the book but it fell apart near the end. so it was a medicore book. that's the only one i could find that i had commented about oh well.

From Potter's Field was a great book. as so was the one after that which is Cause of Death i really loved that one which i just finished late last nite actually, it took me only 10 days to read it and i really loved it. it slowed down a bit in the last chapter and i thought it was going to be one of those books where it starts off strong and than falls apart at the very end and i ended up being wrong in fact because it picked back up and it had a really great ending and i thought it was a really great book so that's 2 books of her's in a row that were pretty damn good books. i hope the next one is great as well which is Unnatural Causes from (1997) some of these books are better than others of course from the ones i've read so far. but that's fine because you are going to have that in any series. for example in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire that's kinda a medicore book and film but it's my brother's favorite of the whole series. so to each their own in short.

kinda of like Port Morturary or however the hell it's spelled? he he that may be one of the books where you don't think it's a great book i dunno myself i'm NOT the far just yet. anyways, but that doesn't mean all her books after that are utter shit. in fact the past couple books sound like they would be really damn good books but i'm just not that far into the series to read them just yet. there's i think #25 now with Chaos coming out i think next month?

i guess i had only read the 1st five books the last time i posted in here well currently i'm on book #10 which is called Black Notice (1999) it's pretty good so far actually

I read up everything up to Black Notice, but then fell away.

Had a quick look at the Amazon reviews for the last Scarpetta book, Chaos, and it's a sea of 1s and 2s.

i have them all on either paperback or hardback or rather i bought some on hardback and some on paperback. 1's and 2's? damn that's low i am of course not that far yet she's having a new one coming out this year the 1st one in five years!

Black Notice (1999) is actually pretty good i don't think it's as good as the last one i read which was Point of Origin (1998) but than i don't expect them all to be gems either in any series i read or anyone else reads. but than i've read reviews that the first five are the best ones and this i'm on the 10th book now and it's a pretty good book actually. the worst book i ever read was called The Zero people i read that in school well it was one of those books where you read it in class with your other classmates. i don't recall the author but it was holy shit it was pretty bad, with the ones i have read they've really differed on quality some are better than others of course Point of Origin was her best since Cruel and Unusual (1993) least i think so anyways. on good reads i think it's called? some of the people give this book and the last pretty low ratings but than we all have different tastes, i myself think that king's book the girl who loved tom gordon also (1999) is a terrible book but it's got it's fans on here apparently, i love Dreamcatcher (2001) and find it funny as hell he was on drugs in a hospital from his time there after his accident.

my point is read what you want i guess if people went all the time on how good or bad a book is there would be a lot less authors writing books and that's what i think anyways and sorry about my ramblings i tend to do that at times

why did you stop reading the series? i'm curious

This is my review for Dust, one of the later volumes, which sums it up for me:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/821421227

(I should say that I have read all the subsequent ones as well, and would read any future ones she releases. Despite their flaws, there’s usually an interesting medical premise at the heart of the mystery)

well that was a pretty damn good review man, i haven't read Dust yet i'm still a long way before i even reach that one but yeah i'm not gonna lie there are times in a lot of the books that kay is in her own mind i guess you could say and Black Notice is one of them but at some point she does realize this as well. Marino is a guy that it took me awhile to actually like cause i really didn't in the 1st novel. have you read them in order? that's how i am doing it anyways. i've got #67 pages left in Black Notice (1999) i will prolly finish it tonight than i have no idea what the hell i'm gonna read next. what do you consider her worst Scarpetta book if you've read them all? based on my own experience i haven't read one yet that is beyond fucking awful but that doesn't mean i won't find at least one or two i've still got a lot of books to read before i do actually catch up.

Thanks for reading my review! I should emphasize that the problems I described in the review are specific to the books around that time. The earlier ones are generally better, and the very early ones are much better. And none of them is terrible. Or, at least, not very terrible.

The worst Scarpetta book is probably one you’ve yet to read - there were a handful written in the third person which were a bit of a failed experiment. So, one of those. The Scarpetta Factor, maybe. But your mileage may vary.

And yes, I read them in order. I’d recommend doing that.

there was i think 6 books she write in the 3rd person before to use her words she just didn't like to live in the killer's mind anymore. i think she also said she only did that for a change until she got tired of writing that way and she's never going back to write that way too. i have always loved it when authors write in the 1st Person hell even king's done it with Certain books too i dunno why i just prefer it that way but i'm not gonna refuse to read a book cause it's written differently either.

i will say that when i read the x-mas book that i do have and it had tiny parts where we are living inside Marino's mind i liked it and Lucy's as well from their way of thinking i think that was to hazard a guess her testing the waters to see if she could write that way and when she realized she could she decided to change it. but all that's just guesswork on my part but i'm prolly right on that though. of the ones that i've read so far the ones i've loved thus far are i named above. none of the other ones are terrible either. i will say that there's one part in Black Notice (1999) where i was a bit bored and that's when they were around the table talking about the murders and it felt too long but than storywise it needed to be there cause you do find out more about what Interpol had and were willing to share so you did need it in the book.

well i have since Finished Black Notice (1999) yeah it was a good book but it wasn't one of her best. i'm now up to The Last Precinct (2000) her Last using 1st person for quite awhile. Port Mortuary (2010) i think is the book ? so that's like i said 6 or 7 books in 3rd person if i recall. this one that' i'm on now isn't awful but it is overlong i think it's pretty much Part 2 of Black Notice (1999) and Blow Fly (2003) is part 3 apparently i'm not really looking forward to that cause i'm honestly ready to fucking finish this Villain and have him over and fucking done with. on how far i am? i'm currently as of this moment o page #404 or #405 i forget which. i think it's #405 and that's out of #597 pages so i'm almost done with it but not quite just yet.

well The Last Precinct (2000) wasn't really that great of a book now i'm reading Blow Fly (2003) and since this is in 3rd person now and what i don't get is simply this i counted there are 7 different people who you finally hear their side of what's going on and that's way to fucking many and in fact it's so many that Kay is barely even in the fucking book and it's her fucking Series! i'm #240 pages into it and so far i'm not impressed with it

The next few (4? 5?) books are in the third person, and suffer from it, in my opinion. She returns to first-person eventually, though.

Another Scarpetta this year, I'm happy to say. Cornwell took a couple of years off, returned with Autopsy last year (which I've yet to read), and has another out this year.

HBJ

yeah i know she did 6 books in 3rd person and apparently while i watched a stream last night she did back in dec. to help promote autopsy i think she said at one point she had quit writing and had retired from it i thin she said it was after she did the updated Jack The Ripper novel, than ideas for the space series came, she had apparently announced that she was done writing the Scarpetta books as well i don't remember that i remember her posting on her site under the news section that she was asked about taking her back to Virgina and she liked that idea and she was going to rewrite what she had written but my guess if that is true she just didn't like what she had written or that was than just decided to pitch it and retire.

than covid hit and she had lots of time in lockdown as we all did. and she started to wonder how Scarpetta would handle covid? and that's when she started writing Autopsy apparently it's a reboot in her words of the series. also according to her this one you don't have to read any of the other books beforehand either. i read some reviews on good reads some love the new one and some really hate it. i'm still gonna read it either way though ya know?

but i'm not there just yet cause i'm only up to Blow fly. as of now before i started reading tonight i have #117 pages left to read and i love the short ass chapters in it i wish she did that in more books of hers. which one did you think was the worst and the best that you've read thus far?

Thanks for that information; I haven’t heard most of it. I had heard she was taking Scarpetta back to Virginia, but then the space novels were published and I figured she needed to take a break or couldn’t make the new Scarpetta novel work. I hadn’t heard that she decided to retire altogether.

When autopsy came out I assumed it was the same Scarpetta novel she had been working on all along. Interesting that she may have completely rewritten it.

i dunno if that's true or not that was just an opinion she's never came out said that's what did happen from what she said on how she wrote only cause she was on lock down like the rest of us were. she's said that if the pandemic hadn't happened than Autopsy would never have been written.

well i started reading Trace Tonight (2004) that would be part 13 in her series. i hope it's better than the last few

I gave up reading her books a couple of years ago. The quality has really dropped off in my opinion.

i've got all #27 and there's going to be some i think are terrible this one is okay so far the last book i read was better that Karin Slaughter book i read but i don't expect to love all of Cornwell's books either though i don't really like the 3rd person books thus far i'm not gonna skip them either. and that's also what i hear a lot i really have a hard time believing that every single one of them is bad though. but i can believe about the quality though