What do You think about Trace (2005)?
Generally a good story, my only complaint is the personal interactions between the main characters, but by the end of the book there seems to be promise that it will be improving. An example of what I struggle with in the characterizations .. in the beginning of the story, Kay is called back to Richmond as a consultant to help determine cause of death for a young 14-yr-old girl. As she and Merino drive through the city they go by the old morgue, the original one Kay worked in as Chief Medical Examiner. The building is being demolished. She's very upset because no one told her. She really believes SOMEONE should have told her! I was perplexed. She apparently left the office in shame, having been fired by the governor (and somehow I missed that in the last book .. hmm) and lives and works in the state of Florida now. Why in the world should she feel someone should tell her that her old workplace is being demolished? She was working in the new building until the end of her job. I just don't get it.Aside from a few of these inane departures, the main plot was good. Not great, but still intriguing enough to keep my interest. There were two subplots that were skillfully woven together at the end. The ending was a bit of a disappointment in that it leads up to this climax .. and then everything is quickly wrapped up in a tidy package and brushed aside.
—Sharon
As I recounted in my review of the book after this, Predator, I checked that book out of the library thinking it might be the one about which I'd read a review saying that finally the Scarpetta series was improving again, but after realizing what a piece of tripe that work is, checked out this one instead, as I'd initially been going to do. It started out more promising than Predator - for one thing, it began with an actual mystery! - but quickly got bogged down in Lucy's personal problems. Back when I used to voraciously read the Scarpetta series, I remember generally liking Lucy's character, but like so many of the main characters in this series, she has become less likable with age (or perhaps she'd still be likable if she were written in a better way). So many things bother me about the series now that didn't used to bug me, and I'm not sure whether they were always there and I just let them slide before because the books were generally well-written and fast-paced, or if the fact that the writing has gotten markedly worse includes these items. For one thing, in both Predator and this book, Cornwell is obsessed with "perfect" looking people, and the characters (and the narration) deride anyone that doesn't look like Cornwell's (and/or the characters') definition of "perfect." Personally I don't know a single actual real person that looks like what the books define as "perfect," and I find this obsession obnoxious. Secondly, I'm finding Lucy's character extremely obnoxious now. In the span of two pages a bit through the book (about 100 pages in), she refers to one character as "the Hispanic" and to her father as "my crazy Latino biological father" while referring to her white mother as "Hopefully, not from my mother..." At this point, I simply lost all patience or sympathy with Lucy's character in this book, and lost even more respect for Cornwell. I can't imagine either Cornwell or Lucy saying, "the white" or "my crazy white biological mother" (indeed, her books now only cite race when the person is a person of color), but somehow it is OK to refer to a person solely or primarily by their race or ethnicity if they are a person of color. It would be different if it seemed like Cornwell was deliberately writing Lucy as a racist or Scarpetta as weight-obsessed (perhaps with an eating disorder?), but it seems that in Cornwell's new world of the novels, things like these are "just the way people act" and considered quite fine behavior. Since Lucy's storyline makes up a huge part of this book (from what it seems so far), at this point I am trying to decide between skipping the sections with her (and the related plot with Benton and Lucy's girlfriend) and only reading the sections with Scarpetta and Marino, or just returning the book without even bothering to read the rest of it. After two disappointing books in a row, and incredibly sloppy writing, I don't believe I will be reading another Cornwell book. It's too bad, as her writing used to be gripping and I once liked the characters of Scarpetta, Benton, and Lucy (though I never was particularly fond of Marino, as was the case for many early fans). [See my review of Predator for my evisceration of that horrendous book.:]
—Liz
Probably one of my favourites of the Scarpetta series so far.Kay never thought that she would go back to the city that kicked her out. Everyone else said that she shouldn't go. But she went for a fourteen year-old girl whose cause of death hasn't been determined. Kay goes back to find that a lot of things have changed.We get a bunch of perspectives in this novel and I didn't mind that. The only one I had a problem with was Dr Marcus. Cornwell went to him once and didn't really come back to him. I wish that something had happened with him, something towards the end.I also like the way that things turn out in the end. I liked the plot and I thought that Cornwell put a lot of surprises into it. Its been really long since I've read a detective series like Kay Scarpetta and Temperance Brennan so it was a refreshing read. We get to see a more scientific parts of the detective work and I enjoy that.The characters personal and professional stuff also get in the way a little bit here. We find that Lucy and Benton pushing Kay away a little bit because they don't want her to know about what is going on. Marino gets into a little bit of trouble. Lucy is trying to kill old habits and is paying for making an impulsive choice. Kay gets attacked and someone tries to undermine her authority in her professional field. Everyone has struggles in "Trace" and it was interesting to see how they dealt with their issues.On to the next Scarpetta novel, whatever one it will be!
—Jules Goud
