'At Risk' about characters, not the whodunit

By CAROL DEEGAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
"At Risk" (Putnam) is the latest forensic thriller from Patricia Cornwell, known for her numerous Kay Scarpetta mysteries. But readers will care more about the main character, Winston Garano, than whether the case is solved.
And that's not a bad thing.
Garano, also known as Win or Geronimo, is an investigator with the Massachusetts State Police. His father was black and his mother was Italian, giving Win his exotic good looks. He wanted to attend Harvard and become a poet and a scholar like his father, or maybe a lawyer. Although he's brilliant, his inability to score well on standardized tests derailed those dreams.
Win's boss, District Attorney Monique Lamont, has sent him to Knoxville, Tenn., to attend the National Forensic Academy. She then orders him back to Boston to investigate a 20-year-old murder. Lamont wants Win to show how decades-old cold cases can be solved using cutting-edge DNA technology.
The case involves a 73-year-old woman who was beaten to death in her own home -- in Knoxville. Why, Win asks, would the state of Massachusetts care about her murder?
Quotable
"We solve some old case that people in the good ol' South have left in a cardboard box for 20 years, and we're heroes," says the shrewish and manipulative Lamont, who has her eye on the governor's office.
This is the final straw for Win, who objects to being used for Lamont's political gain. He decides to quit. Then Lamont is assaulted in her home, and Win is forced to stay on the job.
He asks Delma Sykes, a special agent with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, for help on the Knoxville case. Sykes is a smart investigator, but she doesn't have Win's special gift, which can give him an edge when he's working a case.
Win has premonitions; he calls them "feelings." His grandmother, who raised him after his parents died, says it's in his blood.
"At Risk," which was recently serialized in The New York Times Magazine, motors along at a brisk 212 pages, unburdened by a lengthy and complicated back story.
Cornwell skillfully blends her characters' personal and professional lives into a thriller that is neither predictable nor mundane.
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