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Patricia Cornwall books

(34 Posts)
Grunty Thu 21-Nov-24 12:00:07

Patricia Cornwell's book is the only book I've thrown in the bin. Can't remember which one it was but, having read, and been gripped by the whole book, the last chapter was so unbelievably far fetched and implausible, I threw it out in disgust. Never read another of hers.

TerriBull Thu 21-Nov-24 11:49:32

I read her earlier books and enjoyed them, until she went acronym crazy.

Esmay I'm with you, Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine was my all time favourite crime writer. I've never found another who writes quite like she did.

Grandmabatty Thu 21-Nov-24 11:47:37

I'm fond of Patricia Cornwell. Her work can be formulaic and, to my mind, her first novel 'Postmortem' was her absolute best. She kindly sent me some goodies through twitter highlighting one of her more recent books and replied very nicely to my message thanking her. I know it won't have been her personally sending the goodies, but still.

Esmay Thu 21-Nov-24 11:29:44

One book by Patricia Cornwell : Portrait of a Killer - in which she solves the Jack the Ripper case is my favourite novel .
Otherwise , I'm not a fan of her writing .
My all time favourite crime writer was Ruth Rendell .
Unfortunately , none of her books translated that well for TV .

Cossy Thu 21-Nov-24 11:27:38

What a shame, I loved her early books

MissInterpreted Thu 21-Nov-24 11:21:33

I'm the same. I used to love her books, but I feel they've become very formulaic of late. I actually did enjoy the 'gory' bits, but that's just me. I think I'd actually have quite enjoyed being in that line of work.

Mollygo Thu 21-Nov-24 11:15:05

I found the same thing. I liked her earlier books so much that I used to buy them in hardback when they first came out.
I went off Val McDermid’s books for similar reasons, but I like to reread some of her earlier ones.

Elegran Thu 21-Nov-24 10:56:59

I used to read her earlier books, which had interesting stuff about procedure and anatomy, but stopped when they became rehashes of the same plots. She seemed to focus more and more on the one hand on the personal life of the leading character (down to recipes for just about every meal she ate), and on the other on the horrific details of the injuries of the murder victims. I think she was a victim of her own success, ran out of ideas and just had to fill the pages with the same old same old, getting more specific about the violence in each book. They probably go down well with sadistic foodies.

Poppyred Thu 21-Nov-24 09:57:24

Hadn’t read any of her books for a while, as I found the plots all had the same structure, although some of her early works were brilliant and had to be read in one sitting. I picked up her latest from the library just out of curiosity and found it incredibly boring! All centred around her niece Lucy and all full of gobbledygook smart talk. Needless to say I’ve given up on it and taking it back today!