This is one of Cornwell’s “alternate” books – not a Kay Scarpetta mystery, but a thriller featuring a female police chief from Charlotte, North Carolina. This time, she’s in Richmond, with a huge cast of characters who stories all merge into an unclimactic climax. While I liked this one better than its predecessor, Hornet’s Nest, it still didn’t quite gel. I just got the feeling that these characters and this story didn’t mean as much to Cornwell as the recurring characters in her much better Scarpetta novels.