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The Front
by: Patricia Cornwell

List Price: $22.95

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Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780399154188
ISBN: 0399154183
Label: Putnam Adult
Manufacturer: Putnam Adult
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 192
Publication Date: May 20, 2008
Publisher: Putnam Adult
Release Date: May 22, 2007
Studio: Putnam Adult
Sales Rank: 7330

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Editorial Review:

Product Description:
The audacious new adventure of the At Risk team from America’s #1 bestselling crime writer.

When Patricia Cornwell introduced the quicksilver, cut-to-the-bone style and extraordinary cast of characters of At Risk, the result was electrifying: “At Risk is Cornwell’s finest novel. It works in every way possible— fascinating characters, solid plot, great pacing and expertly crafted prose” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch); “Absolutely the best. Here’s hoping we’ll see more of Win, Monique, Nana and Sykes in the coming years. They are the best characters to emerge from Cornwell’s creative pen since . . . well, Kay Scarpetta” (The Denver Post).

At Risk featured Massachusetts state investigator Win Garano, a shrewd man of mixed-race background and a notinconsiderable chip on his shoulder; District Attorney Monique Lamont, a hard-charging woman with powerful ambitions and a troubling willingness to cut corners; and Garano’s grandmother, who has certain unpredictable talents that you ignore at your peril.

And in The Front, peril is what comes to them all. D.A. Lamont has a special job for Garano. As part of a new public relations campaign about the dangers of declining neighborhoods, she’s sending him to Watertown to “come up with a drama,” and she thinks she knows just the case that will serve. Garano is very skeptical, because he knows that Watertown is also the home base for a loose association of municipal police departments called the FRONT, set up in order that they don’t have to be so dependent on the state—much to Lamont’s anger. He senses a much deeper agenda here—but he has no idea just how deep it goes. In the days that follow, he’ll find that Lamont’s task, and the places it leads him, will resemble a house of mirrors—everywhere he turns, he’s not quite sure if what he’s seeing is true.

“Falsehoods rule,” warns his grandmother. And they can also kill.

This is the master writing at the absolute top of her game. You will never guess what lies behind The Front.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Cornwell Phoned This One In
This book is just awful. Did Cornwell write this on her Blackberry? It just seems like something written for the text-messaging crowd. Her prose is anemic, her characters rehashed from the Scarpetta series, the story line is flat, and the sharp, detailed writing she has given us in the past is as stale as yesterday's Starbucks. And how many cops ride Ducati motorcycles? Honestly... Cornwell phoned this one in. She's just writing for retirement money now.

Rating:

- Difficult to even attempt
Thankfully this was given to me, I am glad I did not bother with spending money on this. I agree that one star is maybe too much. I fell in love with Ms. Cornwell years ago and have been an avid reader since. Scarpetta was a character I enjoyed until the last few books which have been less than her best. I tried Southern Cross, did not finish it, forced my way through At Risk, but find myself once again not being able to finish The Front. Maybe the strain of bringing out too many books in too many areas too quickly has lowered her standards but they just have not been the enjoyable all night read they used to be. The Front has been relegated to the bathroom for the very rare times I get to soak and don't care what I read as long as I wouldn't be saddened if it gets wet. Ten years ago ... Read More

Rating:

- Not enough is too much
The Front is ostensibly about a coalition formed by local Boston area police departments to reduce dependence on the Massachusetts State Police. It opens with the set up for a cold case investigation by the DA, Monique Lamont. She assigns her top investigator, Win Garano, to work with a local detective, a woman nicknamed "Stump", who runs The Fronts mobile crime lab. These three characters are adequately delineated, although they do come across as types. So far, so good.

Regrettably, the plot rapidly deteriorates into a melange of vignettes that fail to gel into a coherent story. What evidently was meant to be "cut to the bone" and "quicksilver" is merely muddled. Too much going on too fast, with a slapdash finale. Too bad.

Rating:

- Shuffle
I was happy to see a couple of new books by Cornwell that I had not read. Even though these were not of the Scarpetta series, which is a favorite of mine, Cornwell's books are usually worth a read. Not this one. The writing seemed to shuffle along, full of depressing, inconsequential scenes with a few fuzzy, antisocial characters. I almost abandoned it several times. I actually flipped to the front to see if I had the wrong author. In my Kindle version, many of the words beginning with the letter P were capitalized. In fact, it was that mystery and not the story that led me to finish reading, thereby discovering that the whole story was a front. The ending seemed like a transplant mistake, and I never did solve the capitalized Ps. Unhappily I realize that the other unread Cornwell book ... Read More

Rating:

- I'll waste as little time ...
...on this review as she did writing this "book". I didn't think my opinion of Cornwell's latest literary efforts could sink any lower...they have. Please don't bother buying this, and send her a message that when she wants to get serious again about writing, send us all a free copy of her next book (and an apology) to compensate for the money wasted on her last few efforts.

Books : The Front