Share for friends:

Trace (2005)

Trace (2005)

Book Info

Genre
Series
Rating
3.73 of 5 Votes: 1
Your rating
ISBN
0425204200 (ISBN13: 9780425204207)
Language
English
Publisher
berkley

About book Trace (2005)

Trace by Patricia Cornwell is a Scarpetta Novel. Patricia Cornwell writes this story in three settings like: South Florida; Richmond, Virginia; and also in Aspen. The story mostly takes place in Richmond, Virginia, in modern time. It’s written in third-person omniscient, but the story mainly revolves around Dr. Kay Scarpetta. Everyone calls her Scarpetta. The story starts when Scarpetta returns to Richmond after five years to help on a case.I like this book because it is about solving cases and getting down to the truth. Scarpetta is the meaning to getting down to the bottom of things. She is smart and always right most of the time, and that is way everyone respects Scarpetta instead of their new boss.After Scarpetta left Richmond five years later when she returns, Chief Medical Examiner, new boss, takes over her old job. His name is Dr. Joel Marcus. Dr. Marcus is the one who called Scarpetta to come back to Richmond to work on the case of fourteen-year-old girl who died of no cause and no evidence why she died. Dr. Marcus blames Scarpetta for everything that goes wrong in his life.Scarpetta and her friend, Marino, are the ones who are trying to figure out why Dr. Marcus wants Scarpetta to come back to Richmond if he doesn’t know her. Also why how does a fourteen-year-old girl die if she doesn’t even have a reason or evidence of why she died. . Marino has a very different presents when he walks in the building. “’That’s enough, please,’ Dr. Marcus snaps. ‘This is not a beer hall.’” Dr. Marcus says to Marino when they first meet. In search for answers, they come across some weird and mysterious people. They come across the FBI agent, Karen Weber, who is beautiful but starts in the case and misses everything up.Scarpetta also gets clues from her on the edge boyfriend, Benton. Benton is also working on a case and is in Aspen, but doesn’t tell Scarpetta anything about it. They have boundaries and respect one another’s boundary. Benton’s case is about a girl who works for Scarpetta’s niece, Lucy, who gets raped at Lucy’s house. Lucy thinks everything is as bad as it seems. “’Just some punk interested in you car, and you have to turn it into an international incident.’ Says Rudy.” The theme of the story is everything has a solution; even though, it may not be there in plain sight. Benton starts to notice that the case he is working on is some how connected to Scarpetta’s case. The only thing is that the cases are nothing alike.As Scarpetta drifts more in the case, she begins to realize that the fourteen-year-old girl was killed. The person who killed her has killed before. The killer also used to work with Scarpetta.The killer is very hard to find. Killer’s prints aren’t in the computer, and the killer doesn’t seem to care to leave evidence. The problem is the evidence is hard to find, but killer wants people to know that there is a killer. The evidence is spread between three different cases. The killer is mostly concern with Scarpetta and Lucy.Trace is a really good book to read. It’s not that easy or advance to read, but is hard to understand but the characters seem to cover the confusing parts in the end. The only way to find out who killed the fourteen-year-old girl and who is stalking Lucy life is to read this wonderful book.

2.5 / 3 StarsThis really hurts because I loved the early books. I admit, I read those a long time ago, but I remember them being better. The old characters are all here, but they are all over the place. The only one remotely like himself was Marino. Lucy just pissed me off, Benton was ok, but the ending seemed really off. I'm not even sure how to describe Scarpetta. Somewhat like herself, but also not. Nostalgia had me reading this, but admit that it had me questioning what I loved about them before.It opens with Kay being pissed because she was supposed to be on vacation with Benton, but he is working a case and she is asked to consult on a suspicious death back in Richmond, her old stomping ground. With her sidekick Marino, she decides to help her replacement discover what happened to a 14 year old girl who mysteriously died while sleeping in her room, getting over the flu. First, why couldn't Benton have told Kay what he was doing? I just didn't get that part. Lucy is so cocky about so much, but she can't have her aunt know she made a mistake with Henri? It made their relationship just seem so stiff throughout, and at the end. Second, the odd Marino and Suz situation, and the non-explanation for why Edgar Allan focused on Gilly in the first place. I'm still not sure that was fully explained.I did like that there was a case and they did slowly work their way into tying everything together for the most part. I just got so frustrated with the Lucy situation. It's almost like everything she touches goes to shit. Then there was Edgar Allan and the ease he had for accessing people's homes. He is described as this odd guy, yet people didn't question him being where he isn't suppose to be? Either way, there were some good things, and some not so good things that made this book just ok for me. Perhaps these people are just too messed up at this point and some kind of closure is needed.

Do You like book Trace (2005)?

Generally a good story, my only complaint is the personal interactions between the main characters, but by the end of the book there seems to be promise that it will be improving. An example of what I struggle with in the characterizations .. in the beginning of the story, Kay is called back to Richmond as a consultant to help determine cause of death for a young 14-yr-old girl. As she and Merino drive through the city they go by the old morgue, the original one Kay worked in as Chief Medical Examiner. The building is being demolished. She's very upset because no one told her. She really believes SOMEONE should have told her! I was perplexed. She apparently left the office in shame, having been fired by the governor (and somehow I missed that in the last book .. hmm) and lives and works in the state of Florida now. Why in the world should she feel someone should tell her that her old workplace is being demolished? She was working in the new building until the end of her job. I just don't get it.Aside from a few of these inane departures, the main plot was good. Not great, but still intriguing enough to keep my interest. There were two subplots that were skillfully woven together at the end. The ending was a bit of a disappointment in that it leads up to this climax .. and then everything is quickly wrapped up in a tidy package and brushed aside.
—Sharon

As I recounted in my review of the book after this, Predator, I checked that book out of the library thinking it might be the one about which I'd read a review saying that finally the Scarpetta series was improving again, but after realizing what a piece of tripe that work is, checked out this one instead, as I'd initially been going to do. It started out more promising than Predator - for one thing, it began with an actual mystery! - but quickly got bogged down in Lucy's personal problems. Back when I used to voraciously read the Scarpetta series, I remember generally liking Lucy's character, but like so many of the main characters in this series, she has become less likable with age (or perhaps she'd still be likable if she were written in a better way). So many things bother me about the series now that didn't used to bug me, and I'm not sure whether they were always there and I just let them slide before because the books were generally well-written and fast-paced, or if the fact that the writing has gotten markedly worse includes these items. For one thing, in both Predator and this book, Cornwell is obsessed with "perfect" looking people, and the characters (and the narration) deride anyone that doesn't look like Cornwell's (and/or the characters') definition of "perfect." Personally I don't know a single actual real person that looks like what the books define as "perfect," and I find this obsession obnoxious. Secondly, I'm finding Lucy's character extremely obnoxious now. In the span of two pages a bit through the book (about 100 pages in), she refers to one character as "the Hispanic" and to her father as "my crazy Latino biological father" while referring to her white mother as "Hopefully, not from my mother..." At this point, I simply lost all patience or sympathy with Lucy's character in this book, and lost even more respect for Cornwell. I can't imagine either Cornwell or Lucy saying, "the white" or "my crazy white biological mother" (indeed, her books now only cite race when the person is a person of color), but somehow it is OK to refer to a person solely or primarily by their race or ethnicity if they are a person of color. It would be different if it seemed like Cornwell was deliberately writing Lucy as a racist or Scarpetta as weight-obsessed (perhaps with an eating disorder?), but it seems that in Cornwell's new world of the novels, things like these are "just the way people act" and considered quite fine behavior. Since Lucy's storyline makes up a huge part of this book (from what it seems so far), at this point I am trying to decide between skipping the sections with her (and the related plot with Benton and Lucy's girlfriend) and only reading the sections with Scarpetta and Marino, or just returning the book without even bothering to read the rest of it. After two disappointing books in a row, and incredibly sloppy writing, I don't believe I will be reading another Cornwell book. It's too bad, as her writing used to be gripping and I once liked the characters of Scarpetta, Benton, and Lucy (though I never was particularly fond of Marino, as was the case for many early fans). [See my review of Predator for my evisceration of that horrendous book.:]
—Liz

Probably one of my favourites of the Scarpetta series so far.Kay never thought that she would go back to the city that kicked her out. Everyone else said that she shouldn't go. But she went for a fourteen year-old girl whose cause of death hasn't been determined. Kay goes back to find that a lot of things have changed.We get a bunch of perspectives in this novel and I didn't mind that. The only one I had a problem with was Dr Marcus. Cornwell went to him once and didn't really come back to him. I wish that something had happened with him, something towards the end.I also like the way that things turn out in the end. I liked the plot and I thought that Cornwell put a lot of surprises into it. Its been really long since I've read a detective series like Kay Scarpetta and Temperance Brennan so it was a refreshing read. We get to see a more scientific parts of the detective work and I enjoy that.The characters personal and professional stuff also get in the way a little bit here. We find that Lucy and Benton pushing Kay away a little bit because they don't want her to know about what is going on. Marino gets into a little bit of trouble. Lucy is trying to kill old habits and is paying for making an impulsive choice. Kay gets attacked and someone tries to undermine her authority in her professional field. Everyone has struggles in "Trace" and it was interesting to see how they dealt with their issues.On to the next Scarpetta novel, whatever one it will be!
—Jules Goud

download or read online

Read Online

Write Review

(Review will shown on site after approval)

Other books by author Patricia Cornwell

Other books in series Kay Scarpetta

Other books in category Fiction