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Quote of the Moment:
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Like the forgotten pawns who didn't know whether there was still a king to fight for, some pieces chose their square—a place where they could die.
— Arturo Perez-Reverte |
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Book Review: Trace by Patricia Cornwell
Posted on Monday 18 October @ 04:24:46
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Every week (or thereabout) HGLEE.COM will review a book or film. Each work will have a brief review and a quick link to Amazon, should you decide to pick up a copy for yourself. This week's selection: Patricia Cornwell's Trace.
A genuine disappointment...In proof positive that there is something to the adage that you should quit while you're ahead, Cornwell disappoints her readership yet again. It seems that the Scarpetta dynasty is finally at its decisive end. It was a long and healthy run, but it didn't have to end this way.
As a long-time and loyal fan of the Kay Scarpetta novels, it saddens me to report that the last three episodes in this chronicle (namely, The Last Precinct, Blow Fly, and Trace) are simply not worthy of the franchise. Each of these works gets successively worse, and the reader is left with distinct impression that Cornwell needed money quickly—why else would she dress up her poor creation to sing and dance in such tawdry ways?
Trace opens much the way it closes: in abruptness and confusion. Readers are thrust back into the world of Scarpetta, Lucy, The Last Precinct, and even hints of Benton Wesley in the same disjointed manner in which Cornwell leaves them in Blow Fly. Just as with that prior novel (I don't even see them as mysteries anymore), the reader is taken for a byzantine series of twists that do not seem to advance the plot or relate to each other. It is simply as if Cornwell forgot how to write good stories.
The foundations for a good story are solid: interesting characters with a loyal fan base; curious facts; seemingly unrelated murders tied together with unique trace evidence; etc. However, this reviewer is left with the opinion that having completed the outline of an intriguing work, Cornwell entrusted her franchise to be completed by an understudy who has neither the talent nor the inclination to do it justice. Indeed, I could nearly reproduce the my review for Kathy Reichs' Death du Jour, entitled "A brilliant plot in search of a more capable writer."
Just as with Reichs' work, there is an assembly of truly interesting case facts. Likewise, there is a unique pathology driving the faint connections among these seemingly unrelated case facts. Unfortunately, just like Reichs, Cornwell spends so much time on silly minutiae that she is unable to advance the story and must conclude it abruptly—as if "motivation and critical particulars were an afterthought for the author." If I were a bit more cynical, I might suggest that Cornwell went the way of Tom Clancy, sold her rights to the Scarpetta franchise to Kathy Reichs, and lost all interest in quality control. As I concluded with the aforementioned review, Cornwell "simply demands too much of a leap of faith from her readers. There is far too little pay-out for the investment that readers make in taking this ride with her at the helm. It's an investment I'm not likely to make again with this author." That is a shame, for Cornwell had done so much good work for this series to end with such a whimper.
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