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Chaos cover art

Chaos

By: Patricia Cornwell
Narrated by: Susan Ericksen
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Summary

Number one New York Times best-selling author Patricia Cornwell delivers the 24th engrossing thriller in her high-stakes series starring medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta.

©2016 Cornwell Entertainment, Inc. (P)2016 HarperCollins Publishers

Critic reviews

Praise for Patricia Cornwell and the Kay Scarpetta novels:
"Cutting-edge." ( Sun)
"A pioneer of the genre of forensic psychological thriller." (BBC)
"America's most stimulating and chilling writer of crime fiction." ( The Times)
"Devilishly clever." ( Sunday Times)
"She is a brilliant writer and I was absolutely gripped." ( Mail on Sunday)
"The top gun in this field." ( Daily Telegraph)
"Forget the pretenders. Cornwell reigns" ( Mirror)
"The Agatha Christie of the DNA age." ( Express)
"One of the best crime writers writing today." ( Guardian)
"Few writers match Patricia Cornwell when it comes to writing crime and her latest Scarpetta novel is one of her best." ( Daily Express)
"When it comes to the forensic sciences, nobody can touch Cornwell." ( New York Times)
"Dazzling.... After reading Cornwell's thriller, most others will pale in comparison." ( Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
"Magnificent plotting, masterful writing, and marvelous suspense." ( Booklist)
"Cornwell's instincts are dead-on." ( Chicago Sun-Times)
"Cornwell remains a master of the genre, instilling in readers an appetite that only she can satisfy." ( Publishers Weekly)

What listeners say about Chaos

Average customer ratings
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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Slow start

The plethora of descriptive narrative seemed to last for ever. I almost sacked it off before the story eventually light up.
The book probably could be about 10 chapters shorter.
Perhaps I've been spoilt by the book I just finished last week, Blue Horizon by Wilbur Smith.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

If it wasn't Scarpetta I doubt I'd finished it....

Once again Ericksen is a disappointment as the narrator, still not able to give each character a distinguished accent, making it difficult to follow who is talking and which lines are actual conversation or thoughts not said aloud, which causes confusing several times..

Chaos is very similar to Depraved Heart, not much happens, way too long passages about things that seem irrelevant, like Kay getting heat exhaustion which leads nowhere, her having to give a talk at Harvard which leads nowhere, it feels like Cornwell didn't know which way to go and tried a few (many) blind ends before deciding where to take the storyline.

Also I was disappointed to find out Kay had had another affair with a married man, I forgave her for pursuing Benton way back when (or them pursuing each other), but I lost some respect for her finding out he was not the only one, I feel like her moral compass should be better than that. Also I wonder why we never hear about Benton's kids when Kay's entire family always seems to be involved, mostly as victims, seems an obvious place to hurt the couple but they seem to have disappeared, not even around the holidays so we hear them mentioned..

I do like the less mentionings of technical features, sometimes the Scarpetta novels have been way too detailed on weapons, helicopters and other equipment, but Cornwell seem to have gotten past the phase of wanting to show off and just mentions what's important for the storyline, though she could cut a few 'tactical' here and there 😄

I did like the twist in the end, though I had guessed half of it, it was a nice cruel twist of the knife and I am actually excited for the next novel (Autopsy) to see where Cornwell takes the storyline...

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Review of Chaos-written by Patricia Cornwall

Not my favorite book by Patricia Cornwall .Got too long winded ,over explained and unbelievable

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Carrie threatens the group's dynamic.

This started off a bit sporadically, but soon all the initial meandering pieces started coming together. Carrie has found a new way of infiltrating the group, getting into their minds and psyches.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Love the series

I only started reading a book start to finish. The Scarpetta series is the first that I sat and read fully and couldn't put the book down. I've just got the latest release 'Chaos'. If you are into Crime Novels then this will be amazing. Though I would recommend that you look up the order as some are 4 books as one story and jumping in on book 2 of 4 will be confusing

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Not bad

Another adventure by this author which is a not bad. Good read for next to the bed

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Chapters

Although I thoroughly enjoyed the books, the chapter numbers did not match what the narrator said.
I enjoyed this narrator much more than the one who read the other books I have listened to.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Hard to listen to the uninspiring narrator

Average story, not sure I’ll bother with this author any more. Sad because I’ve always loved her books

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
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Not sure?

Never read or listened to a Scarpetta before so the long passages on the character back stories were helpful for this KS novice but I can understand the comments of devotees who moan about this. It didn't exactly fly along.
The ending arrived completely out of the blue with no real suspense that KS's nemesis was going to be back and so close to home.
There were no tell-tale signs beyond Benton's assertions prior to this.
Need to check reviews of other Scapetta books before I commit to another purchase.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

kay

big kay and lucy fan gotting all of them on digtal heatd thses series for ten or morse years if your new to patrisha cornwell shes a fab aurther get to love the cartors and get be part of your head

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1 person found this helpful