Book Review: The Scarpetta Factor by Patricia Cornwell (Kay Scarpetta 17)

This is number 17 in the Patricia Cornwell series about Kay Scarpetta. In this novel it is just before Christmas and Scarpetta is continuing to work for CNN as a forensic analyst as well as taking on some pro bono work for the New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

Scarpetta's increased public profile subjects her to every kind of psycho out there. She is in a broadcast but when she returns home there is a package that could be a bomb waiting for her. Soon Scarpetta is plunged into a terrifying world that has links with her niece Lucy.

We learn more about Scarpetta's life with Benton and Lucy's relationship with Jaime. I try hard to like the characters but the plots and the pace of the novels is still off key for me. The earlier novels are so much better than this one.

6/10 for me.

Book Review: Don't Blink by James Patterson and Howard Roughan

This novel is set in New York and I was there on holiday so I read it right on set so to speak. A young reporter called Nick Daniels get the scoop of a lifetime to interview a top sportsman who has not been interviewed for years. When he turns up at the restaurant he witnesses a mob killing at the next table. The sports star disappears only to commit suicide some time later in the novel.

Nick endeavours to sort out the mystery but he is soon in personal danger as well as endeavouring to help the love of his life see that her boyfriend is not what he seems. Russian and Italian gangsters are involved in this novel too.

Worth reading and 8/10 for me.

Book Review: A Cool Head by Ian Rankin

Written for World Book Day, this is a short (and cheap!) novel by Ian Rankin who is famous for his Rebus novels.

This one the character Gravy who works in a graveyard has to hide his friend who turns up in a strange car with a bullet hole in his chest. He asks Gravy to look after things before he dies. There is a gun and a bag of money belonging to someone else who is on the hunt for it.

Gravy is none too bright and he goes on the run with the money.

Quite an enjoyable read but bring back Rebus!!!

7/10

Book Review: Kill Alex Cross by James Patterson

Read this on holiday in New York so I was nearly in Washington DC where the novel is set. Another in the Alex Cross series by James Patterson. As ever with this series it is nice to know what is happening in his personal life and family as much as the action parts. The family seems relatively quiet at present but it was nice to catch up.

With regards the action, Alex Cross is called in to help find the two children of the US President as they have been kidnapped. He is personally invited by the President's wife to help but it is clear that there is someone who does not want Alex Cross on the case. He manages to get himself onto the inside track eventually.

We are also led into the terrfying world of terrorism as well, Cross and his colleagues also have to cope with this too.

Pretty good but the series is beginning to get a bit tired now, the book in some ways seems to be a parody of some of the earlier novels. However it is as well written as ever.

8/10 for me.

Book Review: Scarpetta by Patricia Cornwell (Kay Scarpetta 16)

Kay Scarpetta accepts an assignment in New York to examine an injured man in a psychiatric prison ward. The man has asked for her and he tells her a strange tale where he explains away his injuries as incurred during a murder that he did not commit. A woman is found tortured and murdered and this is the first of further violent deaths. It is clear that someone who is committing these crimes knows what the victims are doing at all times. Who is it?

We learn more about the Scarpetta/Benson relationship as the novel unfolds as well as about her niece Lucy and her lesbian relationship too. The cases being worked on immerse us into the cutting edge of crime solving and it is quite an enjoyable ride.

The Scarpetta novels are starting to regain their earlier good reads?

I would give his novel 7/10.

Book Review: The Birthday Present by Barbara Vine

An up and coming Member of Parliament takes on a mistress. From this simple act a whole host of events ensue that result in death and the destruction of many lives.

The MP in a sex game sets his mistress up to be kidnapped. He pays a couple of men to do this but a terrible car accident results in the death of the woman and one of the men. The other man suffers a loss of memory.

The MP, due to a misinterpretation of the facts of the accident and good fortune appears to get away with it. As ever with Barbara Vine, you know this will not be as it seems. We get inside the heads of the characters to understand the psyche of who we are dealing with.

The web of deception soon unravels and it is a great tale that is set in the early 1990's and the sleaze of the then Conservative Government in the UK.

Great stuff and an 8/10 for me.

Book Review: The Watchman by Robert Crais

The first in the Joe Pike series, but really it is another in the excellent Elvis Cole/Joe Pike series, but this time highlighting Joe Pike.

Pike returns a favour by agreeing to protect a rich girl from South American drug lords let loose in Los Angeles. Cole of course helps him in this. The plot is well thought out and developed and we want to know what happens next. There is plenty of action, Crais writes about Pike in an exciting way even when he just taking cover in some bushes.

There is plenty of blood spilt in this one and Pike shows that he is capable of love too but falls for someone just as emotionally dysfunctional as he is.

I enjoyed this read tremendously.

9/10 for me.