I'm starting to be disillusioned with the Scarpetta series. The characters are getting harder to like--including Kay Scarpetta herself--and the plots are just so-so. We have a bad guy, he kills a lot of people, Marino and Scarpetta go after him, Kay has a brief fling, the killer tries to kill Kay, the end. I didn't like the abrupt ending of this book, and I didn't buy Kay's feelings for Tally. Two business meetings, a one-night stand, and a lovers' spat, and suddenly she can't get him off her mind and is desperate to find him. Yet nothing ever comes of it. It was disappointing. I think Cornwall leaves a lot of questions unanswered, and a lot of the plot points dangling. I never did get a sense of why this killer kills--only that he does, and very violently. What happened to Chuck? What about Joe? And why does Cornwall make a smart woman like Scarpetta so dumb that she keeps letting the bad guy into her house? This book kept my attention throughout, but when I finished it, I felt a little cheated. It just didn't all add up.

Overall - 1/5 : Dog catching its tail !Plot - 1/2/5 : Good start, but disappointing finish. Kay and Marino come together to solve the mystry behind a unidentified body found in a container, which leads them to France to unreveal a horrible serial killer who calls himself Le Loug Garou - The Werewolf. Kay is again put down when she choses to flirt and Lucy irritates me that i feel I have reached my limit. And the way Marino is treated shows clearly that the series has started to sink.Writting - 4/5 : Still strong in Forsenic and pathologic details.Heroine - 2/5 : Kay Scarpetta. She thinks she can do anything and cryout. Just wanted to say that it does not work all the time. I remember in the middle of the series, I really felt for her. Now she has really turned into some stranger to me.Villan - 1/5 : Chandonne - loup-garou - Poor fellow.Description - 4/5 : Detailed description of each and every event.Violence - 5/5 : what else did you expect !Romance - 1/5 : I start to think does a women really need to be this of a kind.Philosophy - 0/5 : Nothing useful.Art - 1/5 : Nothing useful.History - 0/5 : NoneReferences - 2/5 : Nothing useful.Humour - 1/5 : None.Dialogues - 3/5 : Saves the day.Characters - 3/5 : No new one, just turning good to bad and bad to worse, and if that is called a twist, I do not accept.Positive - Interesting to see Kay moving forward always. Negative - Really do not understand, why there is so many thing going on and are connected, but has not been well climaxed. At points, you feel like the scenes are rushed and should be finished as its already 300 pages and we have hit nothing.Comments : Needs some good solid characters, some new and comical ones then and there, just to bring down the very dark atmosphere !What I learned from this book : Watchout for Loup-Garou, no one knows what happened (including himslef) !

Not a fan. The main character in this book is self righteous and her friend the cop is an ass. All of that could have easily been forgiven if the mystery part was very suspenseful but even that was without true merit. http://bibliofilesbookrating.blogspot...

Well, it was exactly what you expect from Cornwell. I don't know of a single page where anybody was nice to anybody. Anger, fear, resentment, hostility, even the love scene was not a nice pleasant scene. The criminal was a monster with a one in a billion chance to exist. Everybody was out to get Kay. Marino was not cordial to a single person. The people who are supposed to like each other don't do anything to be kind to each other.

Another book that goes on without explaining a really important point - all the sudden Marino is back and uniform and Lucy is in another agency - wtf?? Then Kay's character goes on a rant about tattoos - Kay is getting more conservative and less likable as each plot goes by - the weird tension between Marino and Kay and the relationship between Kay and Lucy is out of control. The one thing that could be said is at least Kay is going through grief. On to the actual mystery - this is the saving grace of the book - I did not feel like I completely wasted time because I was constantly guessing about who was who - the problem was that the conclusion of the story ended up in two or three pages, rushed and not explained well as if Cornwell was just "done" with writing the end. I really think the series is getting worst - from my mystery reads I do not expect much for these short reads and unfortunately I keep getting disappointed. I'm taking a break from the series -