Add your review
Avg. Rating: 1.83
Finally I Have Grown To Like Cornwell's Alternate Series
In the first diversion which Patricia Cornwell took from my favorite Kay Scarpetta, I was too angry that Cornwell was changing characters that I couldn't be fair about the new characters of Hammer, West and Brazil. Ultimately, in reflecting for some time on the change, it occurs to me that it's not fair to expect a writer to remain creative if locked into one particular character. I was asking the writer in Patrica Cornwell to lock herself into Scarpetta and get them out to me as fast as I could read them. I realize this is an truly unfair expectation. Having sorted through this I approached Southern Cross with a very different attitude. This time I was open to the change. I think the book is a truly excellent one. Unlike the standard formula for a typical suspence/mystery novel, Cornwell has three very strong characters, yet because of the town of Charlotte's closemindedness about "outsiders coming in to run their police department," they are really placed in a no-win situation. Withoout Cornwell pulling some spectacular changes in Charlotte's police force, the story and the characters of Hammer, West and Brazil prove themselves to be highly professional but none is an absolute heroine or hero. This story is really about crime, people's closeminded attitude toward change and outsiders and most importantly -- it is a brilliant story which captures the the plight of marginalized youth in our society. We all need to belong! Abraham Maslow places it on his order of needs toward self actualization just above the very basic of the basics -- essentially right after the need to eat and have our other physical needs met. In adolescence, particurly those who fall outside the standard "groups" of acceptable groups, those less popular kids will go to great lengths to belong to something/anything. As a result, they are extremely vulnerable to "outlaw" groups. In Southern Cross, a vulnerable artistic and intelligent kid isn't particularly attractive or a part of a group. He is preyed upon by a small group of lowlifes who consider themselves a gang. They offer him membership -- belongiing. Yet, their intention is one which is not to increase their enrollmeht but to use him in their schemes, thieving and eventually turning to killing. The young man while desperately wanting belong is intelligent enough to realize that belonging comes at too high a price. It costs him his ability to express himself artistically, to attend school where art classes are extremely important to him and where participation in the matching band is a true souce of self esteem for him. While he goes along for a while, Andy Brazil catches wise to his possible membership in the gang. In addition to his gang membership, artistic and musical avenues are important to self esteem. He is also a hidden computer wizard who manages to break into the police web site and lock up the data base all over the world. His only intention was to give local police some help in locating where there is gang trouble. The boy eventually is able to choose the avenues he believes are in his best interest -- his art and music. He comes to understand the fact that belonging's not worth the loss of what is far more productive. If there is a main protagonist, it is this young man -- not Hammer, West and Brazil which would a traditional route (and a safe route for another writer to take so to write on the "safe side".) Cornwell's storytelling abilites are masterful. The reader experiences highly successful police leaders from Richmond become frustrated and humbled by the "no outsiders wanted" passive aggressive behavior they experience in Carlotte. Yet they keep at it, humbly but notq defeated. The grand change them envisioned is completely unrealitc. Having worked with hard core delinquent adolescents for five years, I know that not enough is written about why adolescents become involved in "belonging through crimal avenues." As we see crime rates, particularly among kids rise throughout the ountry and conservative policies and financial restraints moving away from "treatment" toward "punishment,"this story is particularly timely. In Cornwell's story, there are many issues to consider. Ultimately, I believe the unexpected progtagonist makes the righ choices and he comes away as a more confident, highly moral young man. Cornwell has taken a challenging topic with deep social im excellent yet different than usual and tried and true suspense mystery.Yet despite deep thought, social justice iessues, a sensitivity is apparent and a jam-packed social policy issues jammped through the story. Get job Patricia! Keep Hammer, West and Brazil coming. Just don't forget about Kay. She has lots to do yet too!
Not my favorite Cornwell read
This one misses the mark for me. Try another like the Body Farm to enjoy this talented writer. From Potter's Field was also a good read.
The "Plan 9 From Outer Space" of detective fiction.
Southern Cross is too ridiculous to be a detective novel, to violent to be a comic novel. This is my first venture into Cornwell. I have been told that her Scarpetta novels are better. I may try one of them one day, but I am too astounded by this book to try another or her soon.Starting with a character named Buttner (called Butt) Fluck, aka Bubba, a blue-blooded southern aristocrat with an Austrian accent who speaks English like Chico Marx, and a thoroughly dislikable bad guy who is a well dressed, well groomed white guy with suspicious eyes, who gets sexually aroused by robbing and later by killing people. When one watches a farce on stage, on knows that all of the characters are going to interact with each other and there will be no outside characters. Southern Cross is just such a farce. The coincidences never stop.
Review this book
|
