I know I know, I swore off Cornwell after my last read of hers but I picked this one up for free from the book exchange!

I thought I'd give this a go as it was the very first Kay Scarpetta book that kicked the whole thing off. I did read pretty much every Scarpetta book when I was in my teens/twenties but have forgotten many of them now.

To be fair the writing is good, Cornwell is more descriptive and sets the scene better than in others in the series. There is also that lack of pretension that starts to creep in in later Scarpetta books. We don't get the whole "I'm such a good looking, amazing cook, fantastic medical examiner" trope thankfully.

The story reads well. A good mystery, a few red herrings, the new relationship between Kay, Marino and Wesley. She does veer into the superfluous information zone when talking about computer programming, so much so my mind started to wander! But overall this inaugural Scarpetta was a solid 3 star read.

Postmortem is Patricia Cornwell’s first book that started it all!

This book—and any of her books—is written in the most sophisticated way one can write a book. She writes with an excellent style that makes her extraordinary talent glimmers in the Hall of Fame in the writing business.

Postmortem is one hell of a book that starts with a breathtaking opening that will surely make the rest of the book an addictive journey for any reader—as the characters, the storyline and the plot will take to another world.

Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta wakes up in the middle of the night to a phone-call that will literally make her life a living hell. A human-monster has viscously struck once again, leaving not-so-many clues behind. And it is up to Dr. Scarpetta to make the impossible to stop a cold-blooded women-killer from striking once again—and before she becomes his next victim.

Fills with masterful descriptions of each single crime, and while getting into the mind of a brilliant psychopath and into Kay’s imagination of him, Postmortem is sure to make your blood boils and your back’s hair rise.

And you will NEVER see ‘that’ ending coming!

As brilliant as it is, Postmortem is sure to attract you to the rest of Patricia Cornwell’s books.

Enjoy this outstanding novel!

This is the only Cornwell review I'll put here.
This one, her first in the series, is excellent. The story was very good, the forensic investigations were fascinating. I've read Body of Evidence, All That Remains, and Cruel and Unusual. These were quite good as well, and worth your time, but I began to tire of Kay Scarpetta during The Body Farm. I've had enough, but it was fun while it lasted.

Gracias a mi tía por hacerme conocer a esta escritora, me pregunto cómo es que no supe de ella antes con lo que me gustan las historias sobre asesinatos.
Amé, me enganchó desde la primer página, me encantó el personaje de Kay y me alegro de que haya más sobre ella. Es una historia que me hizo volver loca tratando de descubrir al asesino y la verdad es que no me esperaba para nada todo lo que pasó.
Definitivamente voy a seguir leyendo a Patricia.

Después de mucho tiempo postergándola, por una u otra razón, por fin me he decidido con la serie protagonizada por la forense Kay Scarpetta.
Post Mortem fue publicada por primera vez en España en 1990, así que no estamos hablando de ninguna novedad, pero sí de un buen libro.
Teniendo en cuenta que fue escrita en los noventa, el enfoque que realiza la autora de la investigación, desde el punto de vista forense, resulta novedoso. Podríamos considerar que Scarpetta es algo así como la precursora de los CSI, sobre todo teniendo en cuenta la evolución que han sufrido las técnicas y los medios informáticos de que disponían.
Es un libro que mantiene la intriga hasta el final y sin grandes descripciones tediosas que te hacen perder el hilo.

klasičan krimić, kakvi su već pisani devedesetih, s klasičnim zapletom i raspletom i stručno vođenim opisima - ali ima neke ljepote u toj predvidivosti, u tom očekivanom i sigurnom tlu po kojem te vodi kay scarpetta. bez nekih iznenađenja, s užitkom se upuštaš u stručno vođenu priču.

Very well written (with a few typos here and there) story. An older book (early 90s) where DNA was still in its infancy and computers were still being introduced - think "mainframes" and the like. In spite of being a bit dated (which for me, was part of the appeal) the story continuously had me guessing as to who the killer was and who the good guys and bad guys were. Great job Patricia Cornwell!

the first in the long Kay Scarpetta series ist not just a wonderful introduction to the characters but in itself a fantastically done thriller.

sure some of the language chooches are a bit questionable as to why it’s necessary to word it as it was …. but jerks been over 30 years since this has been written and language does evolve and change so what’s normal now want back than and the other way around. so i can overlook that for the most part.

but the crime itself was great.

how the thriller parts were bild up and solved? wonderfully done!

this is not one of those crime books where r reader can actually solve the case before the big reveal but one that makes the reader question every single character around the main one and if they could be the bad guy.
that’s n it as easily done as it might sound to some, so that was great.

i love the relationship between kay and her niece.
it’s refreshing to see a woman in her 40 being happy with her choices and happy to have a niece she can dote but in no ways miss birthing children .
instead being happy about having made her choices as she did and focusing on her career!
sadly it is rare to see that even now in books were women are accepted without questioning their either their worth or their choices after a specific age is reached and without them having children.
so it was especially nice to see that in a book published in 1990.

all in all this was a very well done and throughout thriller with a good amount of medical info sprinkled in and a very well written crime aspect.

but it’s not for the faint hearted crime lovers. this does get pretty graphic, deals with mentions and talks of rape and murder heavily and also has a good amount of talk that shows that too many men see women as less worthy than they are and quite a few victim blaming moments. so be prepared if you are sensitive to that.

বইটা পড়ার পর অনেকেই ভ্রু কুচকাবেন জানি, কিন্তু একটা জিনিস মাথায় রাখলে সমস্যা হবে না। বইটা যখন লেখা হয়েছে তখন এরকম জিনিসই সবচেয়ে আপডেটেড ছিল, মানে প্রযুক্তিগত বিভিন্ন ব্যাপারের কথা বলছি।
এখনকার লেখকদের সুবিধে হচ্ছে দরকারে বিভিন্ন প্রযুক্তির ব্যবহার লেখায় করতে পারেন, তখন এরকম ছিল না, সীমিত উপকরণ দিয়েই সাজাতে হতো। এখানেই লেখিকার স্বার্থকতা বলে মনে করি। পাতার পর পাতা উলটে গিয়েছি। স্কারপেট্টাকেও মনে ধরেছে খুবই। ব্লাড/গোর যদি ভালো লাগে.. তাহলে বইটা একটা ট্রিট হতে পারে আপনার জন্যে।
এত আগে এরকম কিছু লেখার জন্যে প্যাট্রিসিয়া কর্নওয়েলকে স্যালুট :)

I am going to stand by my earlier 5 stars (maybe one of those stars is for the nostalgia factor, but that's okay). I used to love this series, and I absolutely loved the early Kay Scarpetta, before her and Lucy became superheroes.

When I saw how many Mystery Book Awards this novel won the year it was published, I was confident I couldn't go wrong. Well, I went wrong. I guess the problem stems from the fact that I like to be able to figure out mysteries with the protagonist... if there is a murder, I expect the murderer to be a character I met somewhere in the novel and I will be able to follow the clues along with our hero/heroine to catch the bad guy. Not so with Postmortem. You fly through 350 pages only to catch the so-called murderer, who is some regular old joe that you never once crossed paths with.

Maybe she is trying to give the story "realism", but I'm sorry... I grew up in the Law and Order generation. I want to solve some crimes.

Поостаряла кримка, първа от поредицата за д-р Кей Скарпета.

Корнуел е успяла да напише още 23 от серията, а Бард като никога са ги издали всичките на български.

Става, но компютърните тънкости описани в книгата ме развеселиха от сърце, толкова отдавна не се бях сещал за модеми, DOS и свят без мобилни телефони и интернет.

Не мисля да чета останалите книги, не съм достатъчно заинтригуван.