The monster Patricia Cornwell created (Moved to book club from Novels)

HeronW

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http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/books/12/15/patricia.cornwell.scarpetta/index.html

Kay Scarpetta is a heroine with flaws, flubs, and has rocky relationships with her niece, her sister, her ex, and her friends. She's a medical examiner with extraordinary cases and Ms. Cornwall knows the details to the nth degree, even up to the 16th book.

I've enjoyed everything I've read of Ms. Cornwall. While not in the genres I write, these CSI thrillers have wonderful ideas, unforgettable characters, and are thoroughly enjoyable.

Now I have to go back to spackling the holes in the walls so I can paint the bedroom tomorrow...damn :}
 

dpaterso

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Oh dear, oh dear... must keep opinions about Kay Scarpetta to myself... mmmph hrrrm friggin loony tune urrghh!!

-Derek
 

Jersey Chick

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I loved the Scarpetta books until Cornwell went to 3rd person with them. Now, meh. I haven't even picked up the latest one. The previous ones (all after Blowfly, I believe) I pick up, see they are 3rd person, and put back.

Oh, and bringing Benton Wesley back from the dead? Total Dallas - "Bobby comes out of the shower to prove his death was one television-season-long bad dream." If a book series could jump the shark, Cornwell did it with this twist.

Not to mention, niece Lucy - 10 years old in the first book, 21 by the third one - yet no one else aged... grr...

And these were books I used to buy in hardback.
 

Phaeal

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Meh, tried one, didn't like the style, put it down. I'm also tired of all the forensic wannabes the "monster" has spawned.

My two favorite forensic pros are Quincy and Dexter. ;)
 
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Me too.

And Cornwell's book on Jack the Ripper as well.

;-)

Oh Jesus friggin' Christ on a skateboard. The arrogance of the women! Case closed? MY ARSE.

I think that's the only supposedly-NF book I've ever SPeBWaSsed. :rant:
 

benbradley

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I only read Cruel And Unusual (this was 1996 where I was pushing myself to expand my reading literature from SF) where her niece was visiting and helped by looking up file dates on a Unix computer at the coroner's office. Then she went to the house where the murder took place ten years earlier and she scanned it with a UV light looking for blood, and yeah, she found blood.

I look for things like title placement in novels (if they show up at all), and 'cruel and unusual' occurred in a throwaway line where the MC was just opining about it all. I wondered whether the title came first and that was written in, or if it was later pulled from the text.
I, too, was bothered by the 3rd person switch. Felt utterly cheated by it!
Which was the first one where that happened?
 

Feidb

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I have no problem with Kay Scarpetta or the stories, however I can't stand to read Cornwell because she writes first person, present tense. It is the most annoying and hard to read style I've ever come across. Even sitting in a hospital bed with nothing to do, unable to get up, I couldn't read Predator, it just gave me a headache.

I like Kathy Reichs much better, as she at least used to write third person, and is a real forensic pathologist. She knows her stuff, for real.
 

gothicangel

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I write in first person, present tense; but I tend to veer to the literary pole.

I just didn't like Patricia Cornwall. The only forensic novelist I like is Tess Gerittsen. If anything gets too deep in procedure or science it gets BORING!
 

SarahDavidson

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Which was the first one where that happened?

It had a bright green cover...can't for the life of me remember the title. My mom tends to pick books up at garage sales and send them home with me, so I'd read most of the the older Kay Scarpetta books and was familiar with the characters/writing style/etc.... then I bought that one while I was on vacation, and all of a sudden it's third person, present tense, and they have some private forensic laboratory, and Benton Wesley is alive. Totally threw me off. I went to the used book store when we got back from Oregon (don't shoot me for buying used -- I'm poor) and found the one that kinda filled in the blanks (Faked his death and put him into witness protection? Yeah, right.) and it made a little more sense, but I was still pretty disappointed.
 

Dave.C.Robinson

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First person present is almost as divisive on these boards as whether to outline or not. Some people love it, and given a choice would neither read nor write anything else; others can't stand it and will toss a book across the room as soon as they see it.

I remember reading the first couple of Kay Scarpetta books then losing interest; but I react to a lot of series that way.

If you love them, that's great.
 

Jersey Chick

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I think Blowfly was the one where she switched from 1st to 3rd and back again, depending on where the story was - when it focused on Scarpetta, it was 1st person. When it focused on Crazy, Evil Villain, it went to 3rd. Awful. I'd have thrown it across the room, but I was afraid it would make a hole in the wall.
 

MarkEsq

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Man, I wish this were my lounge and we were all sitting around drinking. I have an awesome story about her that I just can't share in this medium. Anyone wanna come over and share some scotch?!
 
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It wasn't the tense that made me stop reading Cornwell, it was just that I read that fuck-awful Jack the Ripper book round about the same time she switched with her Scarpetta books and I vowed not to bother reading her novels again. Well, I tried with Blowfly, but up to then I'd had some trouble getting through her books and that's the one that finally made me think "Screw it, I have better things to do with my time."

I might read the JtR book again, though, when I'm pre-menstrual...
 

alleycat

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It wasn't the tense that made me stop reading Cornwell, it was just that I read that fuck-awful Jack the Ripper book round about the same time she switched with her Scarpetta books and I vowed not to bother reading her novels again.
I even tried listening to the Ripper book on audio and couldn't finish it. I mean, I can listen to just about anything in the car or at work, but it was a "no go" on that one.
 

lexxi

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I think Blowfly was the one where she switched from 1st to 3rd and back again, depending on where the story was - when it focused on Scarpetta, it was 1st person. When it focused on Crazy, Evil Villain, it went to 3rd.

Didn't Lawrence Block do that in the last Matt Scudder novel? Not my favorite of the series; I would have preferred not to get into the bad guy's head and private business at all. But I guess the plot required it.
 

Jersey Chick

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I didn't mind the Ripper book - but I read it more as fiction than anything else. IT's funny, but in all the History channel-type Ripper shows, they NEVER mention that artist-guy Cornwell insists was the Ripper. Hmm... all the Ripper historians are wrong and only she's right? Why don't I believe that?
 
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As something of a Ripperologist (my stepdad let me read entirely unsuitable books as a child), I have to say Sickert is mentioned quite a bit in other books and documentaries.

Have you read the Stephen Knight book, JC? Utter tosh, but entertaining. I can't remember what it's called exactly. Something like Jack the Ripper: Revealed. Might have been The Final Solution, but that always makes me think of Nazis...

ETA: There are Sickert paintings in a gallery in town. I can't get in to see them just now as the entire place is being refurbished and I don't think it'll be open again 'til next summer.
 
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Yes. Indeed you are.

scarletpeaches, raised on bloodthirsty murder and loved it. :D
 
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I've never read the Scarpetta books, but I thought the Ripper book was really interesting.

What is it you didn't like about it?

The fact she knows nothing about the time period, customs of the day, the people she mentions or chronology.

She chose her suspect and fit the 'evidence' around it, rather than looking at the evidence and opting for a likely suspect.

I was raised on Ripperlore, and the errors, lies, misinformation and sheer arrogance of the woman make me want to go all Mary Kelly on her ass.