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Richmond, VA, an elegant city steeped in rich Southern tradition, is the setting where
Patricia Cornwell plants her witty characters in SOUTHERN CROSS. Cornwell uses her most
colorful palette of words to tell the story that places her malfunctioning people in
history's glorious sites with Richmond's antiquities speaking for the author as background
characters in this, her latest novel.
Police Chief Judy Hammer leads the cast that brings life to the former Confederate
Capital. Widowed less than a year, Hammer resigns as Police Chief in Charlotte and accepts
a new professional challenge in Richmond. Together with Deputy Chief Virginia West and
Officer Andy Brazil, Hammer tackles a one-year challenge to "clean house" in the
Richmond Police Department while city patriarchs blatantly resent them.
Their biggest job, at first, is to eliminate glitches in the new computer system known as
COMSTAT. A "fish" virus threatens to crash the entire system, and Brazil, the
computer whiz kid, is unable to erase it. Cornwell presents a steamy personal relationship
between Brazil and West with tongue firmly planted in cheek. By the end of the story, the
reader applauds their romantic revival.
Spectacular southern personalities make up the fabric of the interwoven story lines.
Cornwell introduces us to the likes of Bubba, Weed, Smoke, Divinity and Smudge. Bubba, a
fiercely loyal longtime employee of the Philip Morris Tobacco Company, interfaces with
Smudge Bruffy in a cellular telephone call that bleeds into the circuits of Hammer and
West. The broken words of this overheard conversation establish a probable murder to be
committed.
Multiple points of view add change of pace to the narrative. The action moves from police
stations to cemeteries and from school gymnasiums to city streets with ease. A defaced
public statue of venerated Jefferson Davis, with credit taken by the Pike gang, drives the
tension to a climax. An atypical police story, SOUTHERN CROSS is full of the elements that
invite its readers to visit and fall in love with its central city. The story's strengths
are its elaborate paintings of righteous indignity, pompous historical pride, professional
jealousy and nonstop conflict.
Like her previous Scarpetti novels, Cornwell's rich characterizations and ingenious use of
setting and plot line can make a believer of a doubter. I felt deep empathy for the young
artist, Weed, and silently applauded when the police did the right thing for him. SOUTHERN
CROSS made a Patricia Cornwell fan of me.
--- Reviewed by Judy Gigstad
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