Hornet's Nest

Overview

Dynamic trio of crime-solvers in Charlotte, North Carolina: Andy Brazil, an eager young reporter; Judy Hammer, the city's police chief; & Virginia West, Hammer's deputy & genuine head-turner. All are on the trail of a vicious serial killer

Editorial Reviews

The decision to abandon her forensic pathologist Kay Scarpetta (Body of Evidence; Cause of Death; etc.) leaves Cornwell lacking more than a fail-safe series heroine. The only credible element in this novel is the urban New South setting. The story-about two women top cops and a young male newspaper reporter in Charlotte, N.C.-is routine fare at best. The three characters-42-year-old Deputy Chief Virginia West; her boss, unhappily married Chief Judy Hammer; and handsome wunderkind journalist and volunteer cop, Andy Brazil-are preternaturally competent automatons, obsessive and utterly devoid of self-awareness. A sequence of serial killings of out-of-towners, men who are pulled from their rental cars, sexually mutilated, marked with orange spray paint and shot, creates tension in Charlotte. While Hammer struggles with city politics and a depressed, obese husband, West contends with Brazil (a "handsome and fierce" 22-year-old with "total photographic recall"), who is on assignment to write about police activity, having impressed his editor by turning in "a hundred of hours' overtime five months in a row." Rather than reveal her characters through their words and actions, Cornwell forces them on us predigested ("West believed women were great"; "Brazil did not believe prostitution was right."). In that same descriptive mode, she takes them on roller coaster rides of extravagant emotion-rage, grief, resolve, despair-and offers set pieces in place of plot: mid-book, more than 150 pages pass without mention of the murders. We are made privy to the fantasies of West's cat, but not to the motivations behind the killings. There is nothing to believe in on these pages beyond Charlotte itself. 750,000 first printing; $500,000 ad/promo; Literary Guild, Mystery Guild and Doubleday Book Club selections. (Jan.) -- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY.

Author Information

Bio of Patricia Cornwell

Patricia Cornwell is an award-winning novelist whose books have consistently appeared on the New York Times bestseller list. Cornwell was born in Florida in 1956. When she was nine years old, her mother tried to give her and her two brothers to evangelist Billy Graham and his wife to care for. For a while the children lived with missionaries since their mother was unable to care for them. Cornwell was a police reporter for The Charlotte Observer and worked in the chief medical examiner's office in Richmond, Virginia, for six years as a computer analyst. She also volunteered to ride with the police during homicide investigations. While working for the medical examiner, she began to write novels. Although the award-winning novel Postmortem was initially rejected by seven different publishers, once it was published it became the only novel ever to win the Edgar, Creasey, Anthony, and Macavity awards, and the French Prix du Roman d'Adventure, in one year. She is also the only woman in the United States to receive England's most prestigious crime-writing award, the Gold Dagger. Cornwell's novels are both national and international bestsellers. They have been translated into several foreign languages. Some of her novels are Body of Evidence, All That Remains, Cruel & Unusual, The Body Farm, From Potter's Field, Unnatural Exposure, Hornet's Nest, and A Time for Remembering, a biography of Ruth Bell Graham, the wife of Billy Graham.

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Additional Info

Imprint

Penguin Group E-Books

Filesize

733.54 KB

Number of Pages

384

eBook ISBN

9780786566624