A review by alykat_reads
Trace by Patricia Cornwell

slow-paced

1.0

What's more painful than taking a month to slog through one of these? Listening to it on audio with a narrator who has terrible accents. 

At this point I'm continuing with this series just to see how unhinged we can get. Apparently, the limit does not exist.

Soooo we spent the last 2? 3? books focusing on "Wolf Man" and he's so dangerous and has managed to escape from death row, he's OBSESSED with Kay, fantasizes about killing her, etc in the previous book.. And now it's been over a year since Kay has been reunited with the "come back to life Benton" and Wolf Man is just.. forgotten? Nothing happened? He's just chilling waiting patiently having no contact with her, even though he concocted such an elaborate plan while on death row to escape and get to her? Did I misread something in the last one? Idk.. But I guess we will see if he gets mentioned in the next book.

Next, Kay is still irrational af. She's pissed someone calls her Kay and not Dr. Scarpetta, then in the next breath she's pissed someone is calling her Dr. Scarpetta and not Kay. Like, idk, just say something??? She's worked up about the state of Virginia tearing down her old medical examiner building, even though she knew it was happening before she got fired?? Then she freaks out when the new ME is like "hey, he [Marino] can't be in here" and she takes offense and says she can bring whoever she wants with; even though there's plenty of times that she freaked out on others while she was ME and they would bring unnecessary people into her examining room....
The conceit this woman have knows no bounds. 

Idk why Patricia keeps writing to make Lucy go down these spirals. Every one of her gf's has been some sort of psycho who has used her to get to Kay to take revenge and kill her and/or Lucy. She also supposedly has this security firm that's one of the best in the world, but she's getting outsmarted by some dimwit who used to work in the lab with Kay who was so insignificant she doesn't even remember him at first? Pls, Patricia. 

Does Marino HAVE to hook up with every suspect and/or someone connected to the case? This trope is also getting super old.

And I'm sorry, but no one is going to be so dense as to think that the FBI is investigating their child's death and sincerely believe they 'died of the flu'. Pls.

Can't wait to see the shitstorm of the next one!