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Book Review of The Last Precinct (Kay Scarpetta, Bk 11)

The Last Precinct (Kay Scarpetta, Bk 11)
daedelys avatar reviewed on + 1218 more book reviews


This book has caused me to stop reading the series. It was the final straw that broke the camel's back in an otherwise mediocre and overly-hyped series.

By page 82, my brain was screaming to my hand to start scraping my eyeballs out with a nearby nail clipper. Don't get me wrong, it's great that the author tries to humanize her lead character by having her talk about "feelings" and "personal issues" (don't get me started on how annoying Lucy is!), but it doesn't need to take up the first 100 pages of the book. I didn't sit down to read a forensic mystery/thriller so I could get in touch with my girly feelings. If I'd wanted to do that, there's other genres I could've picked up to suit that type of mood. This was the type of series that I started reading because I wanted to read about forensics and not about a lead character who is, for the most part, just annoying and having a "heart-to-heart" with her shrink while complaining about her life and how unfair it all is. (Trust us, we know that, that's why we're reading a book to get away from the boring "Days of Our Lives" stuff.) Call me cold and heartless, but I'm not generally feeling in touch with my feminine side when I'm in the mood for a good thriller.

So, sad to say, I did what I rarely do and just couldn't finish the book, though I made it past 100 pages and consider that enough reading to know I didn't like it anymore. My dislike of the lead character in general has over-ridden my interest in continuing on with the series. It's an interest, I should mention, that wasn't that great anyway, because I kept finding problems and plot-holes in most of the books that made me groan in annoyance. It's a bummer, too, because I still had 3 more books I had bought that are going from my TBR pile straight to my release pile. What a waste of money!