I found myself struggling to finish this book. Normally I can't put a Cornwell book down. I read from cover to cover almost in one sitting.BLACK NOTICE, and it's predecessor, POINT OF ORIGIN were books that got shuffled to the back of the bookshelf for when I didn't have anything else to read. It appears that Cornwell is moving away from the stand-alone novel and moving into the area of novel-in-serial, where in order to understand one you must read the earlier works. Some of the twists and turns will be explained in the later book, LAST PRECINCT, if you can hang on for that long of a journey.Scarpetta still solves her crimes but she appears to be doing it while whining and complaining. I'll read her next books because I want to see where she takes this character, but I won't buy them.