Troutbirder

Troutbirder
To Go To Troutbirders Nature Blog (click on above picture)

Friday, March 2, 2012

Red Mist

Red Mist by Patricia Cornwell, The new Kay Scarpetta novel from the world's #1 best-selling crime writer. This is number 19 in the series. Okay, I have to confess I don’t usually read crime thrillers. Still, this one had a medical (forensic) theme, so it reminded of Robin Cooks novels, which I liked. I gave it a try
Determined to find out what happened to her former deputy chief, Jack Fielding, murdered six months earlier, Kay Scarpetta travels to the Georgia Prison for Women, where an inmate has information not only on Fielding, but also on a string of grisly killings. The murder of an Atlanta family years ago, a young woman on death row, and the inexplicable deaths of homeless people as far away as California seem unrelated. But Scarpetta discovers connections and......
Did you ever read a really good book, then go to the movie and think they left out way too much. This book is the opposite. It might make a decent movie but the book is way too long.
That is to say stating and restating unneeded detail. A sentence becomes a paragraph. A paragraph becomes several pages.
The author seems to favor cute, snappy, and somewhat sarcastic dialogue. The characters all seem to be mimicking the same detective from a thirties movie.
In any case, if this kind of stuff was the basis of the authors selling millions of copies and perhaps even TV series like CSI...... I don’t get. It seemed to be much ado about nothing.

2 comments:

Montanagirl said...

I have not read this book. I just finish "Waiting For White Horses", and am now on to reading The Great Penguin Rescue by Dyan DeNapoli.

Veronica Wald said...

Thanks for the warning, LOL!