(2019)This was a waste of time. Cornwell introduces an new character, Calli Chase who is a a NASA security/science officer and you get to the end and exactly no resolution. Maybe she wants to sell the next book in the series. NO.Kirkus: The creator of Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta (Chaos, 2016, etc.) peers into space and finds just as much skulduggery there.Less than nine hours from now, a pair of astronauts, Peggy Whitson and Jack Fischer, are scheduled to install a Low Earth Atmospheric Reader in the International Space Station. Only a handful of people with NASA know that LEAR isn't really LEAR; its status as a quantum machine, America's opening bid to establish a world-dominating quantum internet, is top secret. One of those people is federal special agent Capt. Calli Chase, ?a nerdy scientist whose hobby is to moonlight as a security guard? for NASA Protective Services. That's a great skill set for her to have, for hours before the installation is set to begin, and shortly after electrical engineer Vera Young, an outside contractor, reports her ID badge stolen, someone or something trips an alarm in the deep-sunk ?Yellow Submarine? tunnel linking NASA buildings 1110 and 1111. As a winter storm and a partial government shutdown inch toward the site, Calli and Maj. Fran Lacey, a multiphobic officer of the NASA police, investigate the suspicious site and find no reason the alarm should have gone off. In the meantime, though, there's potentially more disturbing news: Vera Young seems to have hanged herself after dousing her body in bleach¥a possible-crime scene that gives Cornwell a chance to show off her trademark forensics. If Vera didn't kill herself, who did? Could it have been her sister, Neva Rong, the CEO of Pandora Space Systems? Or Calli's own twin sister, Carme, a wraithlike, teasingly equivocal figure whose presence Calli keeps sensing even when she's nowhere to be found? Fans mourning Scarpetta's absence will console themselves with a death grip on the myriad technical details, an equally strong, even more tormented heroine, and the determined neglect of the remaining characters.In place of human interest, savor all those acronyms: HIRF, FOD-1, EVA, OEM, TLC, PSS, DARPA, PONGS, PRCH, STM, SPIRNet.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019ISBN: 978-1-5420-9406-1Page Count: 352Publisher: Thomas & MercerReview Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2019Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2019

DNF
oy vey ( )

Patricia Cornwell is a multi-award-winning author whose many books I’ve enjoyed for decades. The technology and science research she did to make this book realistic is mind-boggling. So why did I give only one star? Two reasons:
1. None of the mysteries were solved. One was partially solved. This seems like a blatant attempt to get readers to buy the second book in the Captain Chase series. I resent being manipulated and let down like this. I’m a reader, not an open wallet for any author, no matter how accomplished.
2. The book was mostly written in incomplete sentences, fragments describing what a character was thinking, seeing, feeling, doing, watching, hearing. Entire paragraphs were nothing but fragments. Almost all exposition was fragments. At least the dialogue was written in standard form. The fragments constantly threw me out of the story. I’d expect a sentence to go somewhere but then it stopped at nowhere, just a stupid fragment.
Cornwell obviously chose this retooling of English grammar deliberately, but why? Ignoring conventional writing standards isn’t needed for someone of her caliber, or any writer, actually. This was seriously as annoying as all hell-o.
I will not be reading anymore Captain Chase books, regardless of how intriguing a heroine she is. We readers have standards, and mine were stomped on with purpose in this novel. ( )

Well, this was a very hard book to read. I love Patricia Cornwell and have read every one of her books in the Kay Scarpetta series. That said, I only give this one three stars because of the gigantic amount of research she did on the subject of NASA's space program. Her character, Captain Calli Chase, reminds me a lot of Dr. Scarpetta. She is very smart, tough, and thorough to the point of exhaustion, but where Kay is also fun and interesting, Calli is neither. The entire story covers about twelve hours and is painstakingly delved out little by little through Calli's inner thoughts and a small amount of dialog. I felt like I was reading this while dangling in outer space and running out of air. Half way through I was begging for some action, but instead got more information on scientific facts, crime scene protocol, and how electronic gadgets work. And, while some of it was interesting, it did little to propel the plot. I don't think I'll be following this series because I have completely lost interest. ( )

Disappointing. Seems all Cornwell wanted to do was show off new knowledge; storyline had more potential than she gave it. At times hard to follow. ( )