Point of Origin

By: Patricia Cornwell

Narrated by: Karen White

Length: 11 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's Summary

This dazzling thriller pits Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta against greater odds than ever before.

Convicted serial killer Carrie Grethen has escaped from a psychiatric hospital with plans for revenge. Wary and shaken, Scarpetta also has to investigate the death by fire of an unknown woman. The post mortem reveals the woman was stabbed before the fire was started, and soon Scarpetta and her colleagues are called out to the scene of another fire and another murder.

When her lover, Benton Wesley, disappears while following up a tip-off, Scarpetta, with sudden, appalling clarity, sees that Carrie has set up a scenario in which she has the upper hand and can manipulate them all.

©1998 Cornwell Enterpises, Inc. (P)2015 HarperCollins Publishers

Great Story Dreadful Narration

Point of Origin is a pretty typical scarpetta novel that's more action than forensic focused. That's fine by me but Karen White the narrator must have graduated from the William Shatner School of Overacting. Some reviewers didn't like CJ Critt the previous narrator but I thought she was perfect and any issues with narration were a result of production and editing and not Critt. White has a truly annoying pattern of pauses at inappropriate moments in the story telling. She doesn't do it when speaking as Marino, Lucy or other characters but when speaking as Scarpetta or as the storyteller its so annoying I nearly stopped the audiobook. Rather than saying "I went to the store". She would say "I went ................ To the store". I noticed that she's not the narrator of future Scarpetta novels so I suppose everyone else noticed this as well and didn't want listeners to break their iPods or phones throwing them across the room in frustration.

11 of 11 people found this review helpful

good story, poor performance

The overall story line was great; in typical Patricia Cornwell fashion. The narrator performance was absolutely terrible, and at times unbearable.

9 of 9 people found this review helpful

Great Story, Awful Narrator

As always, I love Patricia Cornwell and I have always enjoyed this story. However, this narrator was one of the worst I have ever listened too. She was too dramatic and points and sounds on the verge of tears throughout the entire performance. Thankfully she doesn't do others for Patricia Cornwell, because it thoroughly ruined the listening for me.

7 of 7 people found this review helpful

terrible narrator!

Is there anything you would change about this book?

The narrator was awful. I listen to a lot of audiobooks. She sounded ministerial and like she was about to cry.

What did you like best about this story?

Not much to go on. I may have to return this one.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

She read in a monotone or sounded like she was very sad or distraught, so unlike Scarpetta's character.

Was Point of Origin worth the listening time?

Unfortunately, no. I'll have to get the book and read it.

Any additional comments?

Is there any way that you could ask the publisher to redo the book with a different narrator?

6 of 6 people found this review helpful

disappointed

As with all of the Scarpetta books Patricia Cornwell is fantastic. i have loved listening to CJ Critt narrating the stories. she puts so much passion into all of the characters and keeps you on the edge of your seat.

this book narrated by Karen White was horrible. the story line was great as always but it was so hard to make it through the first chapter much less the entire book. Karen had no excitement or passion in her voice and I cannot believe they would have selected her to narrate these books.
if she is the narrator on the future books I may not pay to download them because it would be a waste of money.

Bring CJ Critt back.

5 of 5 people found this review helpful

Read - don't listen!

What did you like best about Point of Origin? What did you like least?

Ended up reading it - story was usual Scarpetta novel, enjoyable.

Couldn't get past the breathy bland narrator.

5 of 5 people found this review helpful

Narration is horrible

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

Nothing. I could hardly stand to listen to this woman kill this book.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Karen White?

Just about anyone.

Did Point of Origin inspire you to do anything?

I will make sure I never listen to anything narrated by Karen White again.

Any additional comments?

Thank goodness the next book is narrated by someone else.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Very hard to listen to

If this hadn't been written by one of my favorites, there's no way I would've gotten through it. The choppy, broken & strained speech of Kay made almost made me want to pull my ears off. And the other familiar characters lost their sparkle, too. I haven't looked ahead, but I hope you went back to the original narrator (for this series) after this book. Please tell me you did.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Scarpetta the martyr

Would you try another book from Patricia Cornwell and/or Karen White?

No

What was most disappointing about Patricia Cornwell’s story?

I have grown weary of Kay Scarpetta as the martyr along with all of her friends. Cornwell needs to look at life through another set of glasses.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Reading is very robotic

Most voices were fine but the narroration and Kay sounded like a robot. This made it very hard to pay attention to the story

1 of 1 people found this review helpful