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Product Description
From the number-one New York Times bestselling author of Hornet’s Nest, Patricia Cornwell, comes an all-new, page-turning novel about big-city police, in a story of corruption, scandal, and robberies that escalate to murder. This time, the setting is Richmond, Virginia, where former Charlotte police chief Judy Hammer has been brought by an NIJ grant, to clean up the police force. Reeling from the recent death of her husband and resented by the Richmond police force, city manager, and mayor, Hammer is joined by her deputy chief, Virginia West, and rookie Andy Brazil on the most difficult assignment of her career. In the face of overwhelming public scrutiny, the trio must find the link between the desecration of Confederate president Jefferson Davis’s statue and the brutal murder of an elderly woman. A testimony to the singular versatility and narrative power of one of the country’s best-read storytellers.
Amazon.com Review
In their first appearance (Hornet's Nest, 1997), Chief Judy Hammer, Deputy Virginia West, and reporter-turned-rookie-cop Andy Brazil battled a serial killer in Charlotte, North Carolina. Now, in Patricia Cornwell's Southern Cross, the trio are dispatched to Richmond, Virginia--via an NIJ (National Institute of Justice) grant--to quell the growing gang problem and modernize the beleaguered Richmond PD. They bring with them a sophisticated computer program for tracking criminal activity and a tried-and-true methodology for reforming Richmond's men and women in blue. Unfortunately, Hammer, Brazil, and West could not have been prepared for the resentment they would confront... or the bizarre cast of characters they would find upon their arrival: Lelia Ehrhart--wealthy (and nosey) chair of the Blue Ribbon Crime Commission--whose heavy European accent renders her English dangerously hilarious; Butner "Bubba" Flunk IV--tobacco industry worker, gun collector, and UFO aficionado; Smoke--the sociopathic leader of the Pikes gang; and Weed Gardener--14-year-old painter turned master graffiti artist.
Unlike Cornwell's usual fare, Southern Cross is driven almost exclusively by an interest in these strange personalities and their surreal hometown, rather than in fast-paced thrills. The novel becomes a satire on city politics, Southern culture, the ever-tense relationship between the police and the public, and the struggles of the average man and woman with computer technology. Cornwell does fall down in a few places. First, her description of the computer virus that somehow infects police department Web sites from Richmond to New York seems a bit far-fetched. Also, her narrative, divided among three major characters, loses its focus and sags at several points. In the end, though, Southern Cross is redeemed by Cornwell's inimitable renderings of police work and the quotidian life of Richmond's many odd denizens. --Patrick O'Kelley
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