Search - Predator (Kay Scarpetta, Bk 14)

-(#14 of the Kay Scarpetta Series)-I am scratching my head wondering why the reviews for this book in Amazon.com are terrible. I thought this was a pretty good book. The characters have new issues to deal with. Marino has become a biker. He works out, wears leather and drives a Harley. Lucy has a tumor on her pituitary gland. She is always on the brink of self destruction and it’s hard to figure out why. Kay and Benton are together but their relationship is strained because he knew about Lucy’s tumor before she did. There are several investigations going on at the same time. Come to find out at the end, they are all related. And there is one killer. A woman. She is a beautiful woman but was sexually and physically abused as a child. This causes her to become psychotic with a disorder called DID. This is similar to split personalities. Cornwell, is getting a little repetitive with her story lines. Again, a member of her staff, a undesirable, is linked to the murder. He is involved with one of the personalities and is feeding the killer info about Kay, Lucy and Marino. There is definitely surprise and suspense in this book. A new word I learned “red herring”. Definitely one in here. “Something that draws attention away from the central issue.” I enjoyed this book and I like the new path Cornwell has taken the characters on. I just hope she doesn’t run out of ideas.

Another well written Scarpetta mystery that manages to ask many questions and leaves some of the answers for the next book.

I wanted to love this book. I've always enjoyed the stories of Kay Scarpetta, Marino, Benton Wesley, and Lucy. Even the premise of PREDATOR intrigued me-- Benton is heading a new program where he studies the brains of volunteer test subjects, mostly convicted felons of heinous crimes. He hopes to find a scientific and physical reason for why people do the things they do, and sets out to find if the molecular make-up or abnormalities of the brain cause people to commit vicious crimes against each other. Sounds good, right?

It could have been a great story. There's a plot, of course, where people are dying, strange events are taking place with related murders that seem random, and where an inmate might hold the key to solving the deaths.

The problem is I wanted to shoot almost each and every character that I've grown to love over the years. Benton Wesley is his same, staid self, and I don't have too many complaints about his behavior in PREDATOR. After all, the guy is back from the dead, and I'm happy about that. Kay Scarpetta, on the other hand, has turned into an alternately brooding/bi**y whiner. Marino is a bad-boy-wannabe who now talks in monosyllables such as "mmm" and "mmm-hmm". And Lucy. Sigh. What the HECK has happened to Lucy? As if it wasn't bad enough that in Cornwell's last book, TRACE, Lucy was involved with a psycho-woman, in PREDATOR she's doing all the stupid things she did last time, except this time her involvement with a physcho-woman might get her killed.

What has happened to my favorite characters? I was eagerly anticipating the release of PREDATOR, only to be so let down that I've decided to wait and rent each new Patricia Cornwell release from the library.

I gave the book three stars for the basic plot, which was interesting. If I had to rate the behavior of the characters, it would be in the negatives.

gave this book to my daughter she has the set of this series she said it was a great book

If you've read any of the other Scarpetta series, you must read this one too. My goal is to read all the Kay Scarpetta series because they are all really that good!

Not loving the newer endings like the older books.