Much of this book is tedious. I used to rank Patricia Cornwell among my favorite authors, but the last few books have been slow and repetitive. This one is no exception, so tedious that the plot is nearly lost. It does get better in the second half, though. Cornwell uses an odd combination of present tense and third person omniscient. She frequently uses "and" to tie together otherwise separate sentences. I think the idea is to mimic stream of consciousness, but instead it just seems like poor grammar. The style is disconcerting and detracts from the plot. The plot itself is fairly preposterous - too many unlikely scenarios and connections. The two books before Trace were also both blah and painful to read (I didn't bother to finish either one). I wish she would pick up the action of her earlier style!