AdaDavis's Full Review: Patricia Daniels Cornwell - At Risk
At Risk is a Patricia Cornwell novel that doesn't involve Kay Scarpetta. Originally created as a serialized novel for The New York Times Magazine, the book introduced two new protagonists: Massachusetts District Attorney Monique Lamont and Homicide Investigator Winston Garano.
The Plot, Such As It Is
Detective Garano has been called back to Boston from Knoxville, Tennessee, where he was attending classes at the National Forensic Academy. His boss, DA Lamont, has an assignment for him : solving a twenty year old homicide case back in Knoxville. If they can solve the case using new DNA technology, it will get them publicity, and, perhaps, get Lamont a shot at the Governorship of Massachusetts. She chose Win Gerano for the case because he was going to school in Tennessee and he looks good on camera.
Garano digs up the files on the cold case with the help of a fellow student , Special Agent Delma Sykes of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. With Garano back in Boston , it is really Sykes who is doing all of the legwork on the case. Win has enough problems trying to track down the people in Boston who are trying to destroy Monique Lamont.
The Writing
Aaargh! The whole book is written in the present tense.
Win looks down at the soggy shoes he bought for twenty-two dollars at the vintage clothing shop called Hand-Me-Ups. He notices the beginning of dried water spots on the gray suit he got for a hundred and twenty dollars at the same shop where he's gotten quite a lot of designer clothing dirt cheap because everything is used, cast off by rich people who easily tire of things or are infirm or dead. He waits and worries, wondering what is so important that Lamont has summoned him all of the way up here from Knoxville.
While okay in small doses, 200 pages of this had me pulling my hair out.
My Thoughts:
The plot doesn't hold together. From the beginning, Garano wonders why DA Lamont would send a detective to the Forensic Academy when Boston has its own CSI personnel. He also wonders why a Boston DA would spend time on a cold case in Tennessee when there were plenty of them sitting unsolved in Massachusetts. As a reader, I asked the same questions, but they were never answered. While the "whodunits" are eventually solved in both Boston and Knoxville, neither was much of a mystery.
Aside from Agent Sykes, the protagonists are unsympathetic characters. Lamont collects glass and Garano buys clothes at second-hand stores. We know this because the author tells us , in excruciating detail, over, and over, and over again. I kept wanting to yell: "Okay, Cornwell, I get it! Lamont is sharp and brittle; Garano is vain but cheap. So shut up, already!"
While the story may have worked better as a serialized novel, it doesn't work as a book. Save yourself some time and skip this one.
Filled with all the chilling suspense, rich characters, and trademark forensics that have made Patricia Cornwell an international phenomenon, this #1 ...More at HotBookSale
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