10월 25일 나온 따끈한 콘웰의 스카페타 시리즈 'predator' 입니다.
내용 나오니, 보기 싫은 사람은 보지 마소.
Why Ms. Cornwell? Why???, November 3, 2005
I was terribly disappointed by Patricia Cornwell's latest book, Predator. I have been a big fan of the previous novels, but this one made me wonder if Cornwell hired a ghost writer. Without spoiling the plot, for those I can't dissuade from wasting their time reading this, there are plot lines that seem to be very important that
peter out without any further mention, or resolution. Pete Marino, a character I have always liked, that seemed street-wise, if predjudiced, comes off as a brutish bufoon, and hints are given as to the nature of his moodiness, but again, no resolution. Her attempts to give us the criminal's point of view come off as silly and repetitive, and I guess I now have a very good idea what an MRI machine sounds like, but have no idea why it was so important.
My advice: if you love Kay Scarpetta, Benton Wesley, Pete Marino, et al, let them rest in peace in your memories, but let them go. They're dead now.
Very Disappointing, November 3, 2005
I've been reading Patricia Cornwell's Scarpetta novels on and off for some time now. There was a time when these stories were innovative, and even groundbreaking in their introduction of the strong female lead into the serial killer, suspense genre. But something happened along the way. I don't know if Cornwell changed her story lines for her own reasons or due to bad advice,
but rather than forensic suspense the stories turned into adventures in dysfunctional families. Scarpetta became a flaming codependent trying to mother Lucy, whose goal in life was staying in trouble. And Pete Marino, never the most likeable of characters became increasingly large, loud and obnoxious. To put it bluntly, the killers were often the most attractive characters in the stories.
Cornwell long ago fell off my 'buy in hardback' list. But when I picked up Predator the blurb sounded pretty good, and I decided to give Cornwell another try. The story finds Kate Scarpetta, Pete Marino, and a whole cast of crimestoppers working at the National Forensic Academy,
the institute Lucy created so that she could work as a free agent. All isn't well at the Academy, strange events and thefts are interspersed with intense personality conflicts and mistrust until it is obvious that a crisis is brewing.
In the meantime a subtle series of deaths and disappearances come to light that seem to link Basil Jenrette, an imprisoned serial killer who has become the subject of Benton Wesley's research into the deviant mind, with killers down in Florida where the academy is.
The connections surface painstakingly slowly after in depth forensic work. This is the formula which made Cornwell a success, and I hoped for a return to the Scarpetta of the early stories.
Unfortunately, that was not to be.
Most of the suspense is about which character will have an argument with another, not with the forensic work. Kate Scarpetta literally shotguns the research work, creating a haphazard web of clues and red herrings. If it wasn't for Pat Cornwell's determination to give the whole story away by continually inviting the reader into the mind of the killer (
and a very boring killer he is, by the way)
the plot would have been almost impossible to follow. It is almost as if Cornwell wrote a bunch of short episodes and then put them in a semblance of order without any effort at continuity. I'll probably never know whether the ending was intended to be a cliff hanger or if the story was abandoned to its loose ends.
It's a shame that this series has been allowed to degenerate the way it has. Cornwell seems to be convinced that if she cannot breath new life into her characters she can succeed by making them so pitiable that the reader will succumb to guilt and read the yet another book. My recommendation is that, under no circumstances buy the hardback. Wait for the paperback if you will, although you may find the time best spent reading something else.
어쨌든동 현재 아마존 미스테리 1위다. 우어어어어. 도대체 무슨 일이!
이 전 Tracy 까지 홀랑 다 샀는데. 예전에 봤을때는 신간이라 몰랐는데, 지금 보니 별 두개다! ( 처음 봤다. 별 두개!) 흑. 흑. 흑.