Port Mortuary: A Scarpetta Novel

While the plot is good, Kay Scapetta's constant anger, resentmet, and certainty that she is at the center of everything that happens, turns a "must read" into a "have to finish". I am not sure what happened, but the Patricia Cornwall I used to love to read, seems to have vanished and left someone full of rag in her place. Really sorry to see her go.

Kate Burton is an excellent reader and the story could have been great if Cornwell hadn't put Scarpetta on such a sad, depressed, paranoid trip.

I've read all her novels and I feel the quality of her work declines with each novel and this book was made even worse by the narrator. I'm fairly tolerant of the readers but this was the worst and I struggled to hear the book through to the end. It is all about how wonderful Scarpetta is, how well accomplished a woman she is, etc. etc. Not only did the plot drag on but the narrator made it even worse with her emotional emphasis in all the wrong places. I just started to tune out the story line. My advice, don't spend the money on this one.

how sad after so many years to develop scarpetta, her history and her stories, for cornwall to to turn her into a furious toxic, angry character and this book was like being jackhammered for hours upon end. i realized the story and the character were making me feel sick...in fact, every major character we have come to know over the decades has become toxic...quite a feat. no more cornwall for me.

I haven't enjoyed this series through the last few books, but hoped this would be as good as the initial few books, but this was not even close. Another disappointment. I will not be fooled again.

Very negative. Scarpetta seems depressed and paranoid. Don't understand how she gets to be this way in such a short time.

I've read the Scarpetta novels (early ones especially) and there was so much more depth in those characters -- what happened here? For anyone who has not read Scarpetta, how on earth could they find a character to like? No one to root for. The Scarpetta character reading was angry, angry, all the time. This storyline left me wondering what the heck I just read. Did I miss a chapter somewhere?

I'm very dissapointed with her last two books. Very unfortunate.

I had no idea what was going on thru this eniter book. All of the sudden Kay is in the milatary. Two women killed in South Africa had nothing what so ever to do with the story. I think she wrote this train wreck of a book just so Kay could get a dog. Lucy and Marrino are barley in the story and when they are all she dose is think how much she dosent like Marrino. Kill him off if thats all your going to do with him. I haven't enjoyed any of these books since she bought Benton back from the dead. Should have left him there. Oh and here we are working in another city AGAIN.. I'm not buying anymore of these Scarpetta books

I was very disappointed in both the narration (too dramatic) and the book. Kay is now angry, self analyzing and melodramatic. I've read all the Kay Scarpetta books, and didn't like this book at all.

While the story line is a continuation of the previous plots, it really added nothing to character development. The reader was also inconsistent; overly dramatic at times and too bland at others.