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Just like her previous outing – “Autopsy” – the structure of the novel was the same. Everything takes place over a period of less than 48 hours. It is all slammed together in a wham-bam-thank-you-reader storytelling experience.
As tensions mount for the case to be decided, Scarpetta must determine who is out there, lurking in the shadows. When POTUS arrives in town and an attempt is made on his life, Scarpetta knows that this is not your run of the mill killer, but rather some terror cell out for something larger. Someone is surely trying to send Scarpetta a message, while making an impact on the television news cycle as well. It will take everything in her being to keep Kay Scarpetta from letting justice be perverted, though everything comes together to unveil the truth about another crime that has haunted her for the past few years. Cornwell does a masterful job in this piece to resurrect some of her past greatness in the Scarpetta series. This book starts out with a trial that Kay is an expert witness but is being treated like -well, I just don't know how to describe it, but it sure isn't with any respect! This trial has a lot to do with today's political climate in the USA.
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funding scholarships and literacy programs. Her advice to aspiring authors: “Start writing. And don’t take no for an answer.”
The book opens with Chief Medical Examiner, Kay Scarpetta, being grilled on the stand in a highly emotive murder case. A man is on trial for his life after the body of his girlfriend was found floating in the river after being with him on his boat the night before, & supporters of both sides are in the courtroom & squaring up to each other around Virginia. The prosecutor is trying to make Scarpetta look cold & indifferent to the case & that this has made her sloppy in her interpretation of the evidence, & the judge is giving him latitude way beyond what is normal. The primary action and major plot developments occur outside of the primary characters and offstage from the reader. The core people involved are constantly informed of the key activities propelling the plot forward. They don’t actually experience the events first hand. They come in after those events and then react to what has already happened.
There were some interesting moments in this book, but the return of Kay Scarpetta continues to be a disappointment for me. Cornwell is not creating something new and refreshing, but rather continues to rely on her plotting methodology of solving a mystery over a condensed two-to-three-day timeframe, an approach that she established and perfected, then used repetitively over and over again until it just got old. Would the readers be happy with the same old or want something new? To be fair, I can only answer that question for myself. New Sports Biographies and Autobiographies: Gift a Book for the Sports Fan In Your Life this Christmas Way too much time spent on the scientific research, which overwhelms and almost drowns out the story at time.
The reason that I share this outline is because it has become a repeated pattern for each of the Kay Scarpetta novels. It’s predictable and over-used by Cornwell. It also contributes to some major problems. The Top 25 Christmas Cookbooks for 2023: A Smorgasbord of Inspiration for a Happy Foodie This Christmas WARNING - **SPOILERS AHEAD** - you will want to have read the book or your reading experience may be negatively influenced.They drive to Norfolk (to confirm her boss whom she doesn't like is up to no good) from Alexandria and while driving some of the "terrorists" are arrested. There's clunkiness here and there where everything is spelled out in dialogue instead of conveying some in narrative or where readers are inside Scarpetta's head too much, but that's minor. Maybe it's because it's a timely topic with more questions than answers that's intrigued me for at least a couple of years now. Maybe it's because forensic pathologist Dr. Kay Scarpetta doesn't seem quite as paranoid as usual (even though in this case, her suspicions may be rooted in fact). Whatever the reason, this, the 26th book in the popular series, is another one I really didn't want to put down. Patricia Cornwell sold her first novel, Postmortem, in 1990 while working as a computer analyst at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Richmond, Virginia. Postmortem, was the first bona fide forensic thriller. It paved the way for an explosion of entertainment featuring in all things forensic across film, television and literature.
Cornwell received widespread attention and praise for her series of articles on prostitution and crime in downtown Charlotte. From the Charlotte Observer, Cornwell moved to a job with the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of Virginia – a post she would later bestow upon the fictional Kay Scarpetta. The writing is descriptive and brisk. The characters are intuitive, knowledgeable, and persistent. And the plot is a well-paced, cleverly plotted tale full of mischief, mayhem, coercion, corruption, criminal behaviours, dangerous endeavours, crime scene analysis, secrets, deduction, lies, terrorists, and murder. At this point we are 73% through the book at this point and it has not even been 24 hours since the book began. There was good character growth (just a little growth since the series has been around for years, so you expect the character's to have done their growing) -just enough to keep them fresh. An interesting new weapon, at least to me.
LoveReading Says
I enjoyed reading this book and made a promise to read more of the previous novels in this series. I would rate it at 3.5 stars but some of that is probably due to not being fully up to speed with the series. After earning her degree in English from Davidson College in 1979, she began working at the Charlotte Observer.
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