Black Notice

The Kay Scarpetta series seems to fixate on winter. Again winter rears its ugly head as many problems arise. An autopsy by another coroner reveals that the person who was killed in Point of Origin is really dead. A new Deputy Chief takes over the Richmond Police Department and throws Pete Marino

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into the streets as a uniformed policeman. As usual, Kay encounters a problem with one of her workers, this time a worker is stealing the drugs that are supposed to be destroyed. Then a werewolf has gone on a killing spree in France, and now the creature seems to be in Richmond. Kay's treatment of Pete is surprising at times. Pete always runs whenever Kay calls him, but them she treats him badly. I am discouraged with Lucy's behavior. And of course, Kay has a new love interest, a boy toy. Maybe I need to stop reading the Scarpetta series for a while.

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After reading of Cornwell's books this one fills in some background info on the hairy man.

Cornwell's a great writer, but this wasn't one of her best. The sheer violence made it hard to read, but it was too good to stop. There is a second book--I think--and I'm looking forward to it in a grim sort of way. The single up-close-and-personal scene with Dr. Kay Scarpetta and a man was too

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quick and seemed somewhat contrived. Dr. K was on the rebound, but it seemed something of a compromise of her high ethics.

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Start of Cornwell's decline in quality of story

I enjoyed this book; just enough mythic element to creep you out a little, but not enough to overdo it. I do not see the downhill slide that others see. Good study in grief. I could have done without the standard attempt on Scarpetta at the end.

I haven't read Cornwell in a long time, and hadn't read this far into the Scarpetta series before - but I needed a book and it was available. This one has the usual Cornwell highs of interesting forensic details, gruesome gore, the usual cast of characters, and references to things in Richmond that

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creep me out; as well as the usual Cornwell lows of way too much forensic detail and government agency hi-jinx that makes you feel like there might be a test at the end, too much dependence on everyone believing Kay Scarpetta is the best thing that ever happened to the modern world, and unconvincingly trying to make you get the warm-fuzzies about Kay's inner emotional life. Whatever. Could have easily been about 200 pages shorter.

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The remains of a stowaway is found on the Ricmonds Deep Water Terminal. The only thing Scarpetta has is an odd tattoo.

I wasn't too impressed with this one. It might have something to do with the fact I haven't read the Scarpetta books in order. I get the feeling that Black Notice doesn't stand alone as a story in its own right as well as some of the others do. I felt the plot was a little sketchy and empty in

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places. I'm hoping that Bray's murky past is explained in a latter book, as the vague hints left me frustrated. The "werewolf" plot annoyed me. There could have been more detail on this killer and his unusual condition. Instead I felt that the term "werewolf" was splashed around like a tabloid headline. There to grab your attention and titilate without every giving you satisfing information.

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Kay Scarpetta has enough to deal with in coping with her grief over the loss of her husband, but now someone is plotting to make her loose her job and her authority. This story has many layers. My first Cornwell book, and I found it gripping. Some of the characters actions and reactions didn't seem

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realistic to me, it had more language than I prefer and more gory violence, however, I really liked Kay Scarpetta and the movement of the story. Scarpetta's moral senses appeal to me. I would like to read some of the earlier novels just to see the development of her.

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Geez,such anger!! Way over the top for Scarpetta! Justifed?? Maybe, but again too much happening off the page that makes the plot suffer and the reader ask--wait--did I fall asleep? What's next--DEA or CIA???

My friend periodically gives me bags full of books she's read and I found this one in the last batch. It's been ages since I've read a Cornwell/Dr. Scarpetta book, just long enough for me to miss them and really enjoy this one.

The mystery in this case begins with a decomposing body found in a cargo

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container that docks in Richmond. The murderer's trail will lead Scarpetta and Marino to France and back again and will be very difficult to solve. Meanwhile, it has been one year since her FBI lover Benton's death and she has kept herself too busy to grieve, but suddenly a final goodbye letter from him is delivered to her, and she is forced to face up to her grief.

In another storyline, her niece Lucy hasn't found a way to grieve Benton's death either and is courting danger as she usually turns to violence to solve problems. And if that weren't enough, a sexy-looking cop with connections is taking over the police department and threatening to take over the medical examiner's office as well. Her name is Bray, and she's determined to get rid of both Marino and Scarpetta. You can imagine, if you're familiar with the character, how Marino reacts to this.

Finally, is there a new love interest for Scarpetta? Stay tuned. I had almost forgotten how caught up in this series I can get. I'm back on the Cornwell bandwagon again.

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This series is getting very formulaic. And Kay is getting less likeable. The old horror fan in me, however, loves le loup garou.

I read several of the early Cornwell novels and enjoyed them. Kay Scarpetta was a unique addition to the crime-solving world. At that time Kathy Reich had not appeared on the scene with her own version of the forensic pathologist as crime solver. Eventually though, Scarpetta became a little too

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self-involved for my taste, with too much psychobabble and self-analysis.
Black Notice, tenth in the series, still has some of the same problems, but my favorite character, detective Marino, plays a more substantial role, and the crime is intriguing. Scarpetta is probably the unhappiest character I have encountered. Her niece Lucy, now an undercover ATF agent still reeling from the death of Kay's FBI agent boyfriend, is undercover in Florida on a very risky operation; she's also a petulant child more reminiscent of the adolescent she was in the first novel when her petulance was perhaps more believable.
A body is discovered in a sealed container on a ship from Belgium that was being unloaded in the port of Richmond. The corpse has assorted European coins in his pocket and appears to be covered with animal hairs. Typically, we learn a great deal about autopsy procedures and little gruesome details, such as sliding skin off fingers for fingerprints, etc., but I found the details concerning her use of e-mail quite unbelievable. That the state medical examiners office would use AOL as its ISP, and that the technical person would set up the accounts on AOL for each employee and assign passwords herself, strikes me as rather unrealistic, if not incredibly stupid. Because of this security-unconscious procedure, a treacherous assistant is able to intercept Kay's e-mail from her boss, and to assume her identity in a chat room on the Internet. He's in league with the new deputy police chief, Diane Bray, who has it in for Kay -- why is never made completely clear -- and Captain Marino, assigning him back into uniform. The weird animal hairs are then discovered on a murdered store clerk, and Marino and Kay are soon off to Paris on the trail of an international killer.
Marino is such a great character (he has the largest display of Christmas lights anywhere — he had to install three new fuse boxes), and the plot itself is so intriguing, I can overlook most of Kay's dour outlook and self-pity. But Lucy really needs to have a personality adjustment or get killed off.

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Perhaps the weakest of Cornwall's novels that I've yet read. What I like about the novels is both their story lines and the amount of forensic medical information that they portray. This one, however, got into far too much personal drama and soul searching for my taste. It also confused me.

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Scarpetta is mourning the death of her longtime lover, but I swear I've read several more recent novels in which he appears.

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A very odd book. I was with her until the whole Paris thing about 3/4 through the book. It just seemed so unrealistic in an otherwise decent plot. I really felt badly for the long-suffering Marino when Scarpetta decided to get her groove thing with some unrealistically young dude. Way far-fetched

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and out of nowhere.

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ok Dr. Scarpetta a little boring — left too many loose ends know a sequel is comng

The case begins when a cargo ship arriving at Richmond, Virginia's Deep Water Terminal from Belgium is discovered to be transporting a locked, sealed container holding the decomposed remains of a stowaway. The post

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mortem performed by the Chief Medical Examiner, Kay Scarpetta, initially reveals neither a cause of death nor an identification. But the victim's personal effects and an odd tattoo take Scarpetta on a hunt for information that leads to Interpol's headquarters in Lyon, where she receives critical instructions: go to the Paris morgue to receive secret evidence and then return to Virginia to carry out a mission.

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The 10th book in the series starts with the discovery of a decomposing body in a shipping container. While investigating it appears there is a serial killer on the loose whose violence is escalating out of control. Kay is also marking a year since the death of her boyfriend Benton and is not coping

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at all well. Her niece is working undercover and seems not to care about her own safety and there is someone pretending to be Kay online. As the story develops it becomes clear that everyone she loves is in danger.

I approached this book with an open mind as it has many negative reviews but I really enjoyed it. The interplay between Kay and Marino is written well as he struggles to protect her from herself.(the detective has been put back into uniform by the new chief of police who seems out to get rid of all those who oppose her)

This is a quick read but no less powerful for that.

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Been some time since I read a Scarpetta novel, so recollection is that level of quality was better in others. Marino character in particular was way overdone. Sure, we get that he is a surly cop with an attitude, but he gets portrayed as maniacal and childish. Lots of reminiscing about Benton, to

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the point I began to wonder whether Cornwell didn't have enough material for the book and needed to add filler.

There was the interesting forensic facts about the killer, but they almost seemed jammed in there because they are part of the formula.

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Great fast read detective novel as all of Cornwall’s are.

I read this without having read any prior books in the series, and as such it doesn't do all that well as a stand alone book with many references to various prior events, only rather than refreshers they're quite hollow references which leave the stand alone reader a little puzzled. The continual

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sadness Kay feels over the dead Benson is one such instance where the circumstances of his death aren't readily apparent.

Regardless, it was an entertainingly gory book with a mysterious serial killer who likes to nibble on his victims and leaves odd long blonde hairs behind. For the pace of the novel, I felt things wrapped up rather abruptly and would have preferred a more comprehensive resolution than the rather sudden ending that was written.

Overall, it wasn't bad just seemed more like a written to contract punched out for money rather than the passion of telling a story, like it was a book geared to a particular audience that will buy it for the name on the spine.

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pretty much the one where she went nuts