After finishing Robert W. Walker's most recent installment in his "Instinct" series, Grave Instinct, suspense novels featuring FBI Medical Examiner Jessica Coran, I realized that I am too harsh a critic of many things.

For instance - in a recent review I wrote of Robert Beattie's true-crime account of the 30-year hunt for the BTK Strangler, Nightmare in Wichita, I stated that I basically liked the book, but it had some problems that amounted to editorial sloppiness, as far as I could tell. I detailed a few of the things that grated on my nerves, but concluded overall that it was a very informative and worthwhile read, and that Beattie did well when he wrote from an intimate, first person point-of-view. Since much of the latter third of that book is from this vantage point, it was, on balance, a good read.

Upon finishing Robert Walker's book about a serial killer who steals and eats the brains of young girls who strike his fancy, I realized I was too hard on Mr. Beattie.

Compared to Robert W. Walker, Robert Beattie might as well be Truman Capote.

To be fair, this is the first book I've read in Walker's "Instinct" series, and the first thing I've read by Robert W. Walker. I think it's fair to point that out because at this point it's the only view I have of Mr. Walker's work, and I know authors have their ups and downs just like every other artist.

However, if Grave Instinct is any indication of the quality of the rest of the series, I'm not sure I'll be reading any more about Dr. Jessica Coran.

I believe a lot of people might be troubled by just how relentlessly gruesome this novel is; I was not. I figure that goes with the territory. The things that drove me up the wall about this novel were it's frequent lapses of telling instead of showing, the many, many basic errors that a good proofreader or sharp editor should have caught when it was in galleys, and a lack of connection with any character depicted.

Patricia Cornwell writes novels in a similar vein, with a comparable lead character in Kay Scarpetta. I've had problems with Cornwell's work in recent years, but one thing she has done exceptionally well is make Kay Scarpetta, also a Medical Examiner sleuth, very human and accessible. You get a strong sense in even the more poorly-written Scarpetta novels of who Kay is - her little quirks, her foibles. She breathes off the page, like it or not. Cornwell proves to me that characters in suspense or mystery tales never need be cardboard cutouts moved around and killed off at the whim of the author.