Pete & Kay didn't do it for me this time. As much as I enjoy reading the Kay Scarpetta series, this one was downright bizarre.

Kay is requested by the new Chief Mecical Examiner, Dr. Marcus but everything is quite sketchy. She's there to assist in finding out what happened to Jilly Paulson and nothing is what it appears to be.
1. The child's mother appears or acts like she's mentally out of her wits; all along she's playing S & M games and uses Pete Marino as one of her subjects.

2. Everyone claims the child died from pneumonia but there are evident bruises on her back to suggest otherwise.

3. Henrietta, Lucy's friend, was attacked in Lucy's home and the person that invaded her home is the same person responsible for several deaths in the Richmond, VA area.

4. Dr. Marcus hates Scarpetta and does his best to discredit her; only making himself appear insecure, paranoid and silly.

5. Jilly Paulson's father is a Dr. In Charleston, SC and he wants answers to his daughter's death. At the same time he's violating his female patients and was the one who played the S & M games while their daughter, Jilly was at home.

The story finally tells you in the latter chapters of the book why this stalker is harassing a certain individual. Once you find out the reason, you'll think it's unbelievable because of the number of deaths he's committed. It's never explained why he killed Jilly Paulson, a 12 year old girl; just how it was done.

I have two more of these to read. Don't ask me why. I must have killed a dozen albatrosses in a former life.

#12 ranks up there with the worst books I've ever read. Two of the plot twists were totally ridiculous.

That said, Cornwell seems to know this so she starts this novel 5 years later. In other words, she created such a shit storm that she just jumps ahead so she doesn't have to wade through all the questions that the last book's ending evoked.

As a stand alone the book is still uninspired and creepy. What I mean is that I've read Cornwell was a troubled women and these books start to show that. The characters are like attempted paintings that turn into jigsaw puzzles where the few missing pieces and the creases are all visible.

The ending, like some other of her works, is anti-climatic, and the plot demands so much serendipity you just have to shrug and read on. The characters undergo odd interactions and the sub-plots are just strange and misdirected. There are scenes with a woman who likes rough sex that seems to exist only so Scarpetta can examine another main character's genitals. Another situation requires a harassing physical and a lot of anger that seems to come from the author more than the character and the lesbian romance is truncated and simply present but meaningless.

One could write a doctoral thesis in psych on Cornwell and her relationship with her work.

I loved this book. It is obvious that the author put a lot of thought into the story line. As the different characters begin to take shape, the author does a great job blending everything together...all the way to the end. Definitely worth reading.

The last in Scarpetta re-reads. I love this world and these characters.

ما حداني لشراء وقراءة هذه الرواية هي حبي لكل من يكتب في الطب الشرعي..
وخاصة روايات المبدعة ..
كاثي رايكس .. وبطلتها د. تمب برينان ..

ولكن باتريشيا كورونويل لن تصل لمستوى كاثي رايكس..
لا أعني أن الرواية لم تكن جيدة ..
ولكنها لم تكن جيدة بشكل كافي بنظري...
فلا شيء يضاهي د. تمب..
ولا مغامراتها ...

I blew through this one! ❤️ I was a bit disappointed that it was 5 years later and a lot happened that I wasn’t part of!! But I was glad to finally have time to read one of her books again!!

Although I'm a big fan of Cornwell's Scarpetta series I had great trouble getting into this book.

Scarpetta goes back to Richmond after 5 years to help solve the case of a young girl found dead in her bed. She is called by the new Medical Examiner who reveals himself to be a less than competent man with a few skeletons in his closet. At the same time Benton is in Aspen trying to help a member of Lucy's team who was attacked in Lucy's house, having had to cancel the vacation plans he had with Scarpetta.

I think my main problem with this book is one that I have been feeling in the last books I read in this series. What I enjoyed the most was Kay's observations about life and people, her private life details like cooking or choosing the right wine, it gave the books a sort of an intimist feeling that I enjoyed very much, unfortunately that is absent here.

Then I never quite understood about the new medical Examiner - Dr Joel Marcus - what's his agenda, what is he hiding? There's some build up regarding his character in the beginning but then nothing. And Lucy keeps getting into to trouble and trusting/loving the wrong people. I have some trouble believing someone as smart as her, that has already been burned once by a sociopath lover would fall for that again. And asking Benton to solve her problems for her. I'm a bit annoyed with the Benton character, he is supposedly in love with Kay but he has pretended to be dead for a number of years leaving her to mourn and now he cancels a vacation to spend his time trying to help someone less than worthy, it seems everyone is important except for Scarpetta.

And the mystery about who was behind those deaths was a bit lost in the middle of all this. I never did understand the murder's motivation and there were too many loose ends that seemed to be important and were never tied up at the end. A C.

Another novel in the Kay Scrpetta series, this was the first serialized novel series I started, and it gave me a lot of information about medical examinations and how to process evidence, I continue to enjoy it through the years...

MiM

What's more painful than taking a month to slog through one of these? Listening to it on audio with a narrator who has terrible accents.

At this point I'm continuing with this series just to see how unhinged we can get. Apparently, the limit does not exist.

Soooo we spent the last 2? 3? books focusing on "Wolf Man" and he's so dangerous and has managed to escape from death row, he's OBSESSED with Kay, fantasizes about killing her, etc in the previous book.. And now it's been over a year since Kay has been reunited with the "come back to life Benton" and Wolf Man is just.. forgotten? Nothing happened? He's just chilling waiting patiently having no contact with her, even though he concocted such an elaborate plan while on death row to escape and get to her? Did I misread something in the last one? Idk.. But I guess we will see if he gets mentioned in the next book.

Next, Kay is still irrational af. She's pissed someone calls her Kay and not Dr. Scarpetta, then in the next breath she's pissed someone is calling her Dr. Scarpetta and not Kay. Like, idk, just say something??? She's worked up about the state of Virginia tearing down her old medical examiner building, even though she knew it was happening before she got fired?? Then she freaks out when the new ME is like "hey, he [Marino] can't be in here" and she takes offense and says she can bring whoever she wants with; even though there's plenty of times that she freaked out on others while she was ME and they would bring unnecessary people into her examining room....
The conceit this woman have knows no bounds.

Idk why Patricia keeps writing to make Lucy go down these spirals. Every one of her gf's has been some sort of psycho who has used her to get to Kay to take revenge and kill her and/or Lucy. She also supposedly has this security firm that's one of the best in the world, but she's getting outsmarted by some dimwit who used to work in the lab with Kay who was so insignificant she doesn't even remember him at first? Pls, Patricia.

Does Marino HAVE to hook up with every suspect and/or someone connected to the case? This trope is also getting super old.

And I'm sorry, but no one is going to be so dense as to think that the FBI is investigating their child's death and sincerely believe they 'died of the flu'. Pls.

Can't wait to see the shitstorm of the next one!

La verdad, el libro no me gustó, me costó mucho esfuerzo terminarlo y me llevó mucho tiempo. Siento que es un libro al que se le podrían quitar la mitad de las páginas y la trama/historia no cambiarían mucho.
Quizás sea porque es el primer libro que he leído donde la doctora Scarpetta aparece. Tal vez, al haber comenzado su saga por el 13avo libro me perdí de detalles, sobre su familia, amigos y pasado, que se deben explicar mejor en sus anteriores entregas. Sin embargo, noté que el libro alberga demasiado drama en relación a las amistades y vínculos de la doctora. Es como si no se centrase en el homicidio y búsqueda del culpable, sino que se esparce demasiado por las ramas.
Otra cosa que no me agradó es su estilo de novela negra, mientras leía no me sorprendió en nada, no hay más que un único sospechoso que se conoce desde el inicio, y el único "atractivo" del libro es descubrir si logran o no encontrarlo. Lo sentí exageradamente lento, pasaron más de 150 páginas hasta que se introduce el caso, es decir, el homicidio como tal.
Una cosa a favor son los detalles forenses y técnicos, me parecieron muy interesantes.

Lasāms krimiķis, bet šeit vairāk uzmanības izmeklētāju un laboratoriju darbam, intriga par vainīgo diezgan minimāla. Manuprāt, visām Skārpetas grāmatām ir tāda viegli depresīvi ikdienišķi nomācoša pieskaņa.. Skumju brīžos jāizvēlas kāds jestrāks gabals.

Unfortunately, this iteration of the Scarpetta series has more to do with the relationships among the main characters than the actual crime, criminals, or victims. While we get bits and pieces of some elements of the main story line, it is really only to further dig deeper into how intelligent one of them is or how hurt by their past another is or some other something about them rather than focusing on the actual plot. I would not be bothered by all of the interpersonal stuff if as much time and attention were devoted to the actual story. Unfortunately, the story was incomplete in detail, not developed enough, and as a consequence, really hard to care about.

Another source of frustration in this particular book is that apparently only the main, recurring characters are able to figure anything out. Everyone else is either stupid, incompetent, or apathetic. I don't remember the earlier books being like this, but as the series has gone on, this theme keeps playing out. Golly, it's a good thing these four people are here or gee whiz the whole world would fall apart.

While this book did the job of giving me a "no-brainer" to read on a road trip, I really wouldn't recommend it for much else unless you happen to be a die hard Scarpetta fan. But even then, I'm certain you'll be disappointed.