"Comic romp"?? Puh-leeze. I was appalled at how bad this was. Incoherent and heavy-handed; Cornwell should stick to Scarpetta and leave the humor to those who actually possess a sense of whimsy.

One of the blurb reviews compared it to the work of Carl Hiaasen, which is just so insulting that Hiaasen should sue.

I also think the residents of the actual island of Tangier, Virginia, should sue as well. Her depiction of them was positively offensive.

Got about halfway before I gave up. Terrible book.

This was a decent book. I am sure I would have enjoyed it extremely before I got out of reading only mystery books. It had a great story line, it flowed really well, and kept my attention from beginning to end.

Horrid.

I don't know what to say about this. This was not only the first in the Andy Brazil series that I've read, but also the only Patricia Cornwell book I've read.

And I wish I hadn't have bothered. I spent most of this story thinking the Unique character was a demon, I couldn't believe the parts with the crabs and the trout (as in, she wrote those bits why?) and although the VASCA/NASCAR mix up was funny, the build up and lead in to taking the dentist hostage was way beyond my "suspension of disbelief" capabilities.

It was a mess. It was awful. I wanted to stop but I couldn't, I needed to see how this train wreck ended.

And now I'm just glad I got this from the library and didn't pay for this. I should have read the reviews first!

This is the first Patricia Cornwell book I've read and I must admit I was immensely underwhelmed by it. The synopsis on the cover suggested that this would be an intriguing crime thriller with a bit of humour and some quirky characters thrown in for good measure but that's not quite how it worked. Instead the eccentricities of the characters took over the story, which was flimsy at best, and resulted in a poor imitation of a Monty Python sketch. While the story did progress at pace there were many moments that just didn't seem to fit and didn't have any apparent purpose. Even having finished it there are still some bits that I really don't understand why they were included. The length of the book is problematic too and partly adds to the feeling of confusion with regard to some of the chapters. There were moments that were rather entertaining though, the Governer is rather amusing and the residents of Tangier are intriguing on many levels. I did also enjoy the entries for Trooper Truth for the most part although these did get a little tiresome by the end. This is not what I expected at all and although it is good in parts the rest is a bit of a non-starter, maybe I just didn't get the humour...

Okay. This book. I have big feelings.

I love Patricia Cornwell's Scarpetta books, but this gets a very generous two stars.
Not sure if she was going for an Evanovich-ish humorous crime mystery, but whatever, she missed the mark. By a mile.