Red Mist

The major appeal of Patricia Cornwell’s Scarpetta novels is the howdunnit – the carefully reconstructed forensic pathology, partnered with intricate plotting, that ultimately leads to the “who”. That’s where the good stuff is, and not in the increasingly tangled (and growingly neurotic) background characters who have become staples in the series.

Unfortunately, dealing with these characters and setting up to convoluted plot takes center stage for almost half this 500-page tome, and it’s a tough slog indeed to get to the good stuff, which does ultimately come up to par. Just don’t be in too big a hurry to get there.

I know the Scarpetta series has gotten a lot of criticism in recent years for various reasons. I too, thought some of the entries a few books back got a bit convoluted and hard to follow and a bit off-track. However, never once did I consider not reading the newest Scarpetta book. I eagerly devour each one and feel that Kay is a well-known, long-time friend, who I love to spend time with.

So I got to thinking, no matter what, I love this series. I love Patricia Cornwell's writing and Scarpetta's voice. This series has something that has compelled me to come back for more, without hesitation, and there are only a handful of authors who can consistently do that with me.

There are also very few who can instill such a sense of foreboding show more within the framework of, not exactly mundane circumstances, because let's face it, she investigates violent death, but day-to-day workday experiences. From almost the very first page of this book, I got a feeling of disquiet that steadily increased to the point of real creepiness. I just got an overall crawling feeling of impending doom and danger, and that's very hard for an author to instill and sustain.

While reading this book, I found myself, amidst my own mundane activities, randomly thinking of blood splatter across the walls, of a murderer lurking behind me, of some imminent danger about to occur. Patricia Cornwell's Scarpetta books do this to me every time without fail.

If that doesn't deserve my continued devotion and a five-star rating, I don't know what does! show less

I know the Scarpetta series has gotten a lot of criticism in recent years for various reasons. I too, thought some of the entries a few books back got a bit convoluted and hard to follow and a bit off-track. However, never once did I consider not reading the newest Scarpetta book. I eagerly devour each one and feel that Kay is a well-known, long-time friend, who I love to spend time with.

So I got to thinking, no matter what, I love this series. I love Patricia Cornwell's writing and Scarpetta's voice. This series has something that has compelled me to come back for more, without hesitation, and there are only a handful of authors who can consistently do that with me.

There are also very few who can instill such a sense of foreboding show more within the framework of, not exactly mundane circumstances, because let's face it, she investigates violent death, but day-to-day workday experiences. From almost the very first page of this book, I got a feeling of disquiet that steadily increased to the point of real creepiness. I just got an overall crawling feeling of impending doom and danger, and that's very hard for an author to instill and sustain.

While reading this book, I found myself, amidst my own mundane activities, randomly thinking of blood splatter across the walls, of a murderer lurking behind me, of some imminent danger about to occur. Patricia Cornwell's Scarpetta books do this to me every time without fail.

If that doesn't deserve my continued devotion and a five-star rating, I don't know what does! show less

First read: Jan 2021
Rating: DNF

Re-read: July-Aug 2021

I've got to give this one another chance because as far as I remember it wasn't that bad, it was just slow. Plus I own the rest of the series and I can't skip ahead to the next one if I don't finish this one :)

New rating: 3.5/5 stars (rounded up to 4)

This turned out to be one of the better books of the series in recent years. The start was slow and tedious but once I was over the first 100 pages it got so much better.

This book follows on directly from Port Mortuary and deals with the aftermath of the revelations of Jack Fielding's early life and the attack on Kay. There are important details in the previous book which means the plot of Red Mist wouldn't make sense if you're not up to show more date with the series.

There was lots to enjoy here; catching up with Kay, Lucy and Benton, a couple of intriguing mysteries to solve and the the shock death of a character that has been around for a long time in the series now .

Red Mist loses 1.5 stars for the slow start and a slightly too-neat resolution to the interconnected murder mysteries.

Overall, I'm pleased I re-read this book and finished it this time, and am looking forward to reading the next one! show less

Cornwell has mastered crime fiction and has a string of successes to her name stretching back many years. Red Mist is a different book from many of her earlier novels. This is an inward looking examination of Kay Scarpetta, her past and her relationships. Set in a steamy American South the claustrophobia and feelings of entrapment about which you can do nothing are very strong. This is a book where not much happens but every page is loaded with meaning and foreboding for Scarpetta. Keeping the focus on Scarpetta heightens the suffocating insularity of the situation, but makes some of the key offstage activities seem dream-like and inconsequential. A fine read that I found genuinely scary without any explicit horrors.

"Fresh Meat" by Jordan Foster for Criminal Element

We were close once, Patrica Cornwell’s Dr. Kay Scarpetta and I. But we’ve grown apart over the years. Scarpetta still writes of her cases, of the bodies she dissects and the killers she catches, and I still read of her exploits but with each new installment, I drift. Perhaps it’s because she’s strayed further from the everyday monsters that stalk the streets, the ones that kill in alleyways and houses around the corner and in hotel rooms down the hall. She’s long since left behind Richmond and the Chief Medical Examiner’s office for positions with military clout, manning her own forensic center outside of Boston and, briefly, being CNN’s go-to forensic analyst.

These jobs show more don’t lack for corpses or the unhinged personalities that produce them by the gurney load. But what they can lack is the immediacy, the unwished for intimacy of the earlier cases Scarpetta investigated as a regular ME. The ones without conspiracies or government clearance, without threat levels that need assessment at every turn. The cases where ordinary people living ordinary lives are killed—often in admittedly horribly gruesome ways—by those masquerading as the same kind of ordinary people.

(Read the rest at http://www.criminalelement.com/blogs/2011/12/fresh-meat-patricia-cornwells-red-m... ) show less

The nineteenth book in the Kay Scarpetta series, and following straight on from the previous one, Port Mortuary. Scarpetta has been invited to the Georgia Prison for Women to speak to the woman who sexually abused Jack Fielding (Scarpetta’s deputy, who was murdered in Port Mortuary) when he was twelve, and whose daughter is the psycho genius responsible for his death (and several others). Scarpetta is then contacted by Jaime Berger, no longer DA responsible for sex crimes in New York, but now based in Savannah - and it turns out she manipulated Scarpetta into visiting Georgia. Because she thinks a young woman on death row who brutally murdered a respected doctor and his family ten years prior is innocent.

Scarpetta resents being show more manipulated, but then Berger is murdered… and the hunt is on for a poisoner, who may be linked to the prison and responsible for the the deaths of several inmates who died of “natural causes” just hours before they were due to be executed. The whole gang is in Savannah - Marino, Lucy, Benton - and it seems the poisoner was actually responsible for the doctor’s murder ten years ago.

The plot is, to be honest, a bit weak. Once again, Scarpetta's reputation is attacked (the murderer from the previous book is claiming Scarpetta tried to kill her). There’s another psycho genius hiding in the background, and whose identity is pretty easy to guess. Everyone seems particularly slow to spot things, including Scarpetta, and the killer is found more or less by accident. But there’s some good autopsy scenes and some good deductive science in identifying the poison.

Red Mist seems to close off a two-book story arc, so I expect the next one, The Bone Bed, will introduce yet another psycho genius who will murder a few people, then twists the facts of the case to make Scarpetta look like the villain, before being shot and killed while trying to murder Scarpetta... But we shall see. show less