Book 9 of the Dr Kay Scarpetta series, n  Point of Originn by Patricia Cornwell. Virginia Chief Medical Examiner and consulting pathologist for the federal law enforcement agency ATF, is called out to a farmhouse in Virginia that has been destroyed by fire. In the ruins of the house she finds a body that tells a story of a violent and grisly murder.

The fire has come at the same time as Carrie Grethen, a killer who nearly destroyed the lives of Scarpetta and those closest to her, has escaped from a forensic psychiatric hospital. Her whereabouts is unknown, but her ultimate destination is not, for Carrie has begun to communicate with Scarpetta, conveying her deadly—if cryptic—plans for revenge. Carrie has linked up with a new companion, willing to end his life of sadistic slayings for her pursuit of Scarpetta. Lucy helps catch the arsonist and bring down Carrie. The story-line is just okay.

Now, here is what I don't like about this book: Kay is following her niece, Lucy, all over. Did she, Kay, have to become a consulting pathologist for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms because Lucy left the FBI due to her implications of her sexual orientation. (She, Lucy, had a romantic relationship with Carrie Grethen, the serial killer.) Kay is bitching all the time, as usual - oh Marino this, Marino that. And Marino -- he needs to get a life; he can't be always at Kay's beck and call, even if he loves her so yet she doesn't reciprocate.

Enjoyable as not read Scarpetta for a while. It did not disappoint.

I can't believe they did that to Benton. He deserved better.l

If Bond were a pathologist...

Why am I doing this to myself!? Because Scarpetta is my current detective binge. I use the word "detective" in a very loose way. Scarpetta being in the same league as Tintin - I should make him my next binge read!

I'm reading these out of order as I get them from the library or my mother's get-rid-of pile. If I didn't know Benton was faking his death (of course he is *eye roll*) I might feel devastated. And knowing how Doc Fielding ends up is hilarious - the ghost writers have so much fun.

Wow, these books really don't shy away from not just death of strangers but also of fairly main characters. Another great book in the Scarpetta series. I always enjoy the book that has a main overarching plot come to an end and this was no exception. 4.5 stars rounded up.

i liked carrie being back, but . . . i wanted resolution!

the whole thing with benton is really annoying me. i hear the series takes a turn for the better after The Book of the Dead and it's not like i'm going to be putting down these books any time soon, but man, i just don't like them very much right now.

i also find it fascinating that cornwell has written such a strong, smart homosexual character in lucy, while being a lesbian herself. i wonder why she didn't come out earlier? i mean, i know she's a republican, but man. hiding in the closet? i am not saying that it is necessary, or purposeful, or whatever, but i would think that she would be a little more open about it.

anyway. it was better than the last one, but still i feel the endings are rushed. i like kay, and i still want marino to settle down. i'm a little annoyed by lucy, who doesn't seem to age, and is so reckless, stupid and smart - but seriously? she's not in the FBI still? how effing lame.

Recently someone handed me a bag of paperbacks and asked if I wanted to borrow them. Well, of course, I did. But I answered without really looking. And when I did look, I noticed that approximately 6 of the 8 books were Jodi Picoult. And those’ll be great in a week or so when I get on a plane, but in the meantime I needed something else. It was the middle of the night—no bookstore or library open—so I picked one of the non-Picoult’s: Patricia Cornwell’s Point of Origin.
Point of Origin is one of nearly twenty books featuring the protagonist Kay Scarpetta and her niece Lucy. (I’ve read exactly 0 of the others, but if another turned up in my bag of paperbacks, I’d give it a shot.) Medical examiner Scarpetta must help determine what caused a fire at a wealthy man’s estate. In the midst of trying to solve the case, an old adversary escapes from the mental institution where she was being held.
The novel reads fairly quickly, and I dare say that if you are a fan of crime fiction, you will thoroughly enjoy this book. Me, I could do without the descriptions of charred bodies and other gory details.
Though the novel is part of a series, it can easily be read alone. While there are references to occurrences outside the scope of this novel, everything is adequately explained without being overly explained.

Algo largo para lo que quiere contar, con un final que mejora la novela. El libro me ha costado bastante acabarlo la verdad, el final es interesante pero me ha parecido que el ritmo del libro era muy lento. Regular.

Od mene jaka trojka.

‘Point of Origin’ by Patricia Cornwall, #9 in the Kay Scarpetta series, finds our heroine, genius medical examiner Kay Scarpetta, feeling nervous and angry. Because of previous events in the other mystery novels in the series, her life is teetering on the edge of emotional chaos. She is still looking over her shoulder, traumatized by her close encounters with a pair of serial killers! One is dead, the other confined to a psychiatric facility. But it isn’t over, gentler reader….

However, another case has come up!

I have copied the book blurb:

”A farmhouse destroyed by fire. A body amongst the ruins. Dr Kay Scarpetta, Chief Medical Examiner and consulting pathologist for the federal law enforcement agency ATF, is called out to a farmhouse in Virginia which has been destroyed by fire. In the ruins of the house she finds a body which tells a story of a violent and grisly murder. The fire has come at the same time as another, even more incendiary horror: Carrie Grethen, a killer who nearly destroyed the lives of Scarpetta and those closest to her, has escaped from a forensic psychiatric hospital. Her whereabouts is unknown, but her ultimate destination is not, for Carrie has begun to communicate with Scarpetta, conveying her deadly - if cryptic - plans for revenge. Chillingly mesmeric in tone, labyrinthine in structure, POINT OF ORIGIN is Patricia Cornwell at her most dazzling.

Expect the usual graphic violence and investigative science, gentler reader. The book is not really standalone, either. Start here: Postmortem.

I have read all of Cornwell's books up to this one, and I found this sad as well as wonderfull.
This book started with ashes and it ended with ashes.
If you like a book with a strong female main character, this may be for you.

rating: ✫✫ (two stars; mehhh... well, nope, not for me.)
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moral of the story: do not read a random instalment in a thriller series thinking "oh well every instalment has a different and independent plot anyway, why bother read the rest?" because man, it doesn't always work.
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i have many many issues with this book. most of them originate from the fact that this is the first book i've ever read by the author, although this happens to be the ninth instalment in a series. yes, i know, reading was a stupid decision. but i wanted to read a thriller really badly so i just took a random one from my parents' bookshelves.
anyways, all of this to say that if you have read all the previous books in this series, you might love this book!! so i'm sorry in advance for sh*tting on it.
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I- the plot
this book's first problem, if we take it as a standalone (which, i shall repeat it, it isn't.), is that it has no real plot. in fact, it sort of feels like a way to enhance the reader's hate of carrie (a serial killer) by showing every horrible thing she can do. and, again, she does not do much anyway. so this book's main appeal is benton's death, because i guess the reader has become emotionally attached to him over the course of these eight other books. and so, as i did not care for this character, i did not really care at all. there was no real conclusion to this book: carrie did not get arrested; the mystery was not completely solved. moreover, although carrie did escape from her cell on page 50, there was no other visible evolution. as a result, i was bored. very bored. too bored. this book is a thriller. i was not thrilled.
II- the characters
a) the main characters, our beloved dr. kay scarpetta
it took half a book to understand that her first name was kay, and that the other characters were not just saying "okay" everytime they had a conversation with her.
she was SO ANNOYING. typical. firstly, she cried ALL THE TIME. trauma. and it wasn't like "ooh she sobbed and cried herself to sleep". it was more like (at least twice in every single chapter) "her eyes started to fill with tears". that felt like a dumb ya protagonist, and i did not appreciate this touch. moreover, she was horrible to everyone she loved, a bit stupid at times... not so great at all. i do understand that this book is supposed to portray some kind of trauma, and that the reader is supposed to have grown attached to this woman over the course of eight books... so it should be okay for her to be annoying... but i just pissed me off.
b) carrie
just kidding, we didn't get any information on this character. she must have been further developed in other books. (what a shame that is for me...)
c) benton (aka the love interest)
he was boring and i did not care for him at all and he did not have an actual personality and his only purpose was to die. now i'm going to talk about the last element in detail, so spoiler alert for this book and for 1st to Die yayayay!
i am TIRED of seeing middle-aged love interests die in every single thriller i read. the last one i came across is 1st to Die (my review in detail: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...). except 1st to Die was the first instalment in a series, so i cared for the man who died, and the plot was actually good so yayayay Point of Origin could never relateee. these books had the exact same conclusion (funerals) so it just felt repetitive and a bit effortless to me. again, this is of course a very personal and biased opinion.
III- the writing
the writing was pretty average, and the suspense aspect was not kept running through the whole story, which created a huge boring part from page 100 to page 390. yay. i did not appreciate that.
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conclusion
i would definitely recommend this book to anyone who has read the previous instalments in this series. it is not a standalone though and should not be treated as such. i will not come back to this series, because what was revealed to me particularly benton's death won't allow me to enjoy the first books as much as i would have had i not read this one first. n  everybody makes mistakesss-n