Review: The Front, by Patricia Cornwell

Author: Patricia Cornwell

Audience: Adult

First Impression: As someone who always enjoyed English class in school and now home educates a student, I found the writing style and voice for The Front annoying and a pain in the derrière to read.

Plot/Style/Voice/Characters: Choppy. Fragmented. Disjointed. Those words immediately sprang to mind as I trudged through chapter one. The subsequent chapters never improved. Thankfully, The Front was only 180 pages in length. I likely would not have finished the read had it been longer.

No disrespect to Cornwell or her loyal readers; her style and voice just simply aren't to my liking. I also was never able to form any sort of reader bond or interest with the characters...any of them. I found Nana intriguing, and Win was close to being a character I could care about; however, both fell short with me.

Best Part: How do I say this in a nice way? Hmm...the best part was closing the book at the end. For a brief couple of chapters I thought I might be able get interested in the storyline. I was wrong. It ended with a drizzly fizzle...no spark, bang or gasp.

Irritations: The fragmented sentence structure drove me NUTS! Within dialogue, and used sparingly, sure, fragments are fine. The Front was littered with them.

Wrap-Up Reaction: Not a book I would recommend to any of my read-a-holic friends, sorry Cornwell fans.