Quantum, by Patricia Cornwell

ISBN: 9781503905092
Amazon ID: B07BN2WGGJ

Don't be fooled by the title of this book. It's not a hard science, deeply involved story about quantum mechanics, or quantum cryptography, or quantum physics, or for that matter anything to do with "quantum" at all.

The author seems to have simply decided to use the word as the title for a book without having any interest in using the concept in the story.

Okay, the word "quantum" crops up in the story from time to time, and mainly in the context of a "quantum node" (for which no explanation is given as to what such a thing is), but other than that, there is no basis whatsoever for the book having the title it has.

The other problem with the book is that it has no story. The main character is trying to prevent a disaster from happening, but has no focus whatever on what she's doing at any given time, and completely lacks any continuity from one chapter to the next.

I think that the entire story takes place within the space of 24 hours, so you might expect the book to be quite a gripping read, where you want to find out "okay, what happens next, how do you deal with this?", but it unfortunately disintegrates into the heroine thinking about her sister more than she thinks about the job she's supposed to be doing, and her boss turning up and getting in her way more than giving her clear direction of what it is she's supposed to be doing.

I like quantum physics and quantum mechanics. I really like Terry Pratchett's use of Quantum in the Discworld books. For Patricia Cornwell, though, maybe I made a mistake by trying this book of yours first, but I'm unlikely to try another one until I run out of other authors to read.

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