Mysteries have long been recreational reading for me. About every fourth or fifth book, I read is a mystery sandwiched in between literary best sellers and stellar non-fiction. I've been meaning to get around to Patricia Cornwall and had picked up a few of her books at yard sales, but I was waiting until I found the first book in her Kay Scarpetta series before I dove in. Postmortem won numerous awards when it came out in 1990 including the Edgar and the Anthony awards.

For the first 100 or so pages, I was not overly impressed. As a fan of Kathy Reichs, I felt that Cornwall was not as good but then I realized that Reichs' first book came out 10 years after Cornwall's first Scarpetta book. Put in that historical perspective, I understood that she was the antecedent who set the stage for writers like Reichs. There are other historical aspects of this book that make it fun. For instance there are no cell phones AND the use of the computer was infantile compared to now and Cornwall does a terrific job of employing computers as part of the mystery with a degree of sophistication that was likely unprecedented at the time.

Postmortem is definitely a page turner that kept me up late two nights reading. I'll be reading more of Cornwall in part to see her influence on later mystery writers.

Having read all her newer stuff, I saw this in a bookshop and decided to go back to the beginning where it all began. Somehow I had missed this one, the very first in the Kay Scarpetta series. Maybe because it was initially published in 1990.
I definitely enjoyed it more than some of her later books. Her writing style was more descriptive and the plot easier to follow. In the special edition I picked up which commemorates 20 years of Kay Scarpetta, I was fascinated to read the extra chapter at the end where Patricia Cornwell explains how she got started, found her plot and characters, etc etc. I always thought that like Kathy Reichs, she was a forensic pathologist herself, and it was quite illuminating to discover that she's actually a journalist and not a medical professional. For research purposes she worked in a morgue as a computer programmer.
Anyway, back to the story. I enjoyed the way she introduced Kay Scarpetta, and Lucy as a ten year old brat. Pete Marino she portrayed as a balding fifty-year something cop who wasn't so grammatically correct with his spoken English. It's interesting how through the series Lucy's character developed as she got older, but Pete Marino stayed the same age over twenty years. Because if he started at say 54 years old then by the last book he should be 74 years and I don't think he would still be out there as a cop solving murders.
If you have been a Patricia Cornwell fan, it is worth the visit down memory lane to read the book that started a whole new trend in crime fiction.

this was soooOoooooooo dull dry and BORINg it took me FOREVER to get through and felt like my eyes were bleeding every second. i thought maybe it was going to get thrilling at the end but it didn’t. in fact it got worse???? maybe one of the most anti climactic endings ever ????? there was also an instance of SHOCKING homophobia and even a little racism thrown in for fun so ... No thank u patricia bye bye

Recommended by my local librarian friend...she wouldn't let me just checkout "Scarpetta," the latest in this series, no-o-o-o, she makes me start at the very beginning, with this first, published in 1990. Well, and I did have to get up one night and make sure all my doors and windows were locked as I was reading the book at midnight.

And I kept making concessions for the year, like yeah, I bet this DNA stuff was pretty impressive for 1990, and I can kinda understand why she's explaining all this basic PC computer crap...when your story is that tied to technology, of course the effort is going to feel dated at a later time. I worked some time for a computer forensics company, and I kept wondering about the time frame for technology in that field...how easy now to see who accessed what, when, from where, and exactly what they did with it.

The other thing that was dated...thriller story-telling techniques. The main character (Kay Scarpetta, Chief Medical Examiner) often blanks out, absorbed with her own thoughts, and only catches snatches of the conversation directed at her, in snippets. This mimics the brain's stilted way of processing during "shock" or fear. She begins to re-examine everyone around her as the potential serial killer or guilty of other crimes i.e. hacking into her database or leaking sensitive info to the press or planting evidence or framing her as incompetently tainting evidence...

This was about as satisfying as an episode of Law and Order on television. Not amazing. Not terrible.

Before anything else, I extend my utmost gratitude to one of the best people I've befriended here on Goodreads, Itchy, for recommending this awesome series!

Heart-pulsing plot! It took me a long while to finish, because of running errands here and there, but I enjoyed every bit of it! This book is filled with suspense and interesting characters that you may either love or hate... damn you, Amburgey! Anyways, the plot is nicely paced and even if the technology mentioned in this book isn't as highly-upgraded as ours today, it still intrigues its readers in knowing how forensic investigation was done back in the day.

What I think about Cornwell? Although I'm new to her work, I find myself drawn to her writing style. She has this way with details that you can perfectly envision the characters and scenes, but when it comes to the medical and technology jargon, they become so detailed that it can be a little difficult to follow or it gets a bit boring. Good thing is she didn't make the characters wholly good or bad; they were more complex than I imagined making them more interesting. I will still read more of her books, all things considered.

Quotable Quotes

"Many of us have the same feelings, the same emptiness, the same loneliness. But we don't have the tools to verbalize them. So we carry on, we struggle."
"Some people feel things more deeply than others, and some people feel things the rest of us don't."
"Survival was my only hope, success my only revenge."
"People often say they don't dream, when it's more accurate to say that they don't remember their dreams. It gets under our skin, Kay. All of it does. We just manage to cage in most of the emotions so they don't devour us."
"The public is blaming the city officials, who in turn have to find someone else to blame. It's the nature of the beast. If the police, the politicians, can pass the buck on down the line, they will."
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I chose this book for my month of mystery because I have collected many of this series and decided it was time to start reading them rather than just let them sit there. I am glad I finally jumped into this series since it is a very long one.

Synopsis
Under cover of night in Richmond, Virginia, a human monster strikes, leaving a gruesome trail of stranglings that has paralyzed the city. Medical examiner Kay Scarpetta suspects the worst: a deliberate campaign by a brilliant serial killer whose signature offers precious few clues. With an unerring eye, she calls on the latest advances in forensic research to unmask the madman. But this investigation will test Kay like no other, because it's being sabotaged from within—and someone wants her dead.

Of course I loved the plot of the book since it was on a serial killer. To me that is the best plot for a mystery book. I felt like the pacing was a bit slow though for my tastes until about halfway through the book when it finally picked up and got much more exciting. I did enjoy all the mystery to be solved in this, but was a little let down by who the bad guy was, and it was not what I had expected at all. There was however enough to the story regardless of pacing for me to keep reading.

I really enjoyed the wide array of characters in this story. I like Kay Scarpetta, I like her strengths and her ability to stand on her own, but I am a little disappointed that she really does not have any weaknesses either. She is not that 'perfect' character, but she is not flawed either and I really like my characters to be a bit flawed. Other than that the characters were developed pretty well.

I recommend this to anyone who likes a good mystery with great characters. Had there been better pacing it could have easily ben a 4. I do look forward to the next book in the series and hope for it to be much faster paced.

Me costo un poco engancharme en la historia, debido a tanto detalle y tecnicismo médico, pero las últimas 150 páginas me dejaron completamente intrigada y con ganas de saber el desenlace.

Post-Mortem (Kay Scarpetta #1), Patricia Cornwell

The novel opens as Dr. Kay Scarpetta, Chief Medical Examiner for the Commonwealth of Virginia, receives an early-morning call from Sergeant Pete Marino, a homicide detective at the Richmond Police Department with whom Scarpetta has a tense working relationship. She meets him at the scene of a woman's gruesome strangling, the latest in a string of unsolved murders in Richmond.

Four women with nothing in common, united only in death. Four brutalized victims of a brilliant monster - a "Mr. Nobody", moving undetected through a paralyzed city, leaving behind a gruesome trail of carnage . . . but few clues. With skilled hands, an unerring eye, and the latest advances in forensic research, an unrelenting female medical examiner - Kay Scarpetta - is determined to unmask a maniac. But someone is trying to sabotage Kay's investigation from the inside. And worse yet, someone wants her dead . . .

تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز چهاردهم ماه سپتامبر سال2019میلادی

عنوان: پس از خاموشی؛ نویسنده: پاتریشیا کورن‌ول؛ مترجم: نورا نواپور؛ تهران، نشر خزه‏‫، سال1398؛ در358ص؛ شابک9786229984550؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان ‬ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده20م

داستان «پس از خاموشی»، نخستین رمان بانو «پاتریشیا کورن‌ول» بود و ایشان با آفرینش شخصیت «دکتر کای اسکاپتا» در همین رمان، یکی از شخصیتهای دل انگیز خوانشگران آثار جنایی معمایی را نامدار کردند؛ برای همین «دکتر کای اسکاپتا»، شخصیت کلیدی رمان‌های دیگر ایشان شد

داستان «پس از خاموشی»، درباره ی کشتن یک زن زیبا و جوان است؛ شوهر این زن بازیگر تئاتر است، و این شائبه وجود دارد، که در صحنه زندگی هم نقش یک آدمکش را بازی کرده باشد؛ در روند داستان، خبرنگاری وارد می‌شود، که با برخی مقامات شهر ارتباط داشته، و از جزئیات پرونده ی قتل زن جوان داده هایی به دست آورده است؛ اما کشته‌ شدن خواهر خبرنگار همه معادلات و گمانه‌ زنی‌ها را به هم می‌ریزد؛ در ادامه ی داستان این رمان، قتل زنجیره‌ ای زنان ادامه پیدا کرده، و تلاش‌های پلیس و کارآگاه‌های ویژه، برای پیدا کردن قاتل، به جایی نمی‌رسد؛ اما گره ماجرا از جایی آغاز به بازشدن می‌کند، که شخصیتی به نام «دکتر کای اسکاپتا» وارد می‌شود؛ کسی که نه کارآگاه است نه مرد؛ بلکه یک پزشک قانونی ارشد است...؛

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 10/04/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 03/03/1401هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

Het verhaal zit goed in elkaar. Ik vind alleen dat alles erg uitgebreid wordt beschreven.

I read a few Dr. Scarpetta-murder mysteries, starting off with this one. Patricia Cornwell had me scared and on the edge for the second time in my life! The first time was as a young girl, about 8 years old watching my first - and last- Frankenstein movie. Good Lordie, I distinctly remember the dark, sleepless, horrifyingly scary night in my bed, too scared to call out for rescue ! Well, this time around was a wee bit better. Only a little! I locked every door, every window, every freezer yes, just for in case!) and would have loved to zip-up the curtains all around the windows if it was possible. My conclusion: I was so utterly thankful when the sun rose the next morning. I couldn't put the book down and even if I tried, I couldn't sleep. It took me a while to get over it, but instead of running far away, I grabbed the next two Dr. Kay Scarpetta novels and repeated the whole drama with all three dogs forced to sleep on my bed, nowhere else, all over again!

After three of them I bailed out. The next mental self-induced sadistic exercise was the Steig Larson trilogy. Sherbit no!!! "Silence of the Lambs" and all these above mentioned books are enough to handle in one lifetime!

The books were excellently written though. A genre for the tough old leather stomachs! ;-)

If you can handle scary, and can look past gory and profane, Patricia Cornwell's novels are AMAZING. Aside from good old J.K. and Harper Lee, Cornwell is my favorite author. I'm convinced that all the CSI-esque shows were spawned from her books, and if you like that kind of thing, you'll LOVE these. Gripping, intense, nightmare-inducing ... plus you might learn some new things.

Start with the older books in the series, her newer works aren't as good.

4 stars - English Ebook

I 1st read this back in the 90’s and was bowled over by it then! A lent in the libary then. On picking this up again as a ebook I enjoyed it for different reasons. Firstly because it was like taking a step back in time. If you are a 1st time reader you have to remember that this was 1st published 29/30 years ago. The forensics, a far cry from what we are used to reading and watching today were true for the time and very well described. I was also taken aback by the misogynistic undertones from colleagues that Kay Scarpetta has to battle against yet deals with in her stride. The writter certainly had me wrapped up in the storyline again, I loved every page. She certainly set the standard for top female authors.