From Potter's Field

Dr. Kay Scarpetta, Marino and of course, FBI Agent Benton Wesley investigate the death of a frozen naked woman propped openly in Central Park. Their path leads them to the parents of a psychotic serial killer, one of whom can see nothing wrong about her son and the other parent who would only see his if pointing a shotgun at the son's face. The woman's identity is a shock.

The plot here is sometimes scatty and random. I tend not to like books full of random killings, without rhyme or reason. Here the "randomness" is chilling, and Tenple Gault is a super villain, who curdles the blood. He is just so...hateable. You loathe him absolutely. Especially when you find out how he treats his sister. You just hate him even more.

First read: 2005
Re-read: March 2016
Rating: 4/5 stars

The plot: Temple Gault, the killer that got away in ‘Cruel and Unusual’ is back and killing again. Scarpetta and her team must track him down once and for all before he kills anyone else.

What I liked:
- Kay’s struggle with her emotions when it comes to Benton, Lucy and the other members of her family make her seem very real and relatable.
- Marino’s protective feelings for Kay seem genuine and I liked seeing a nicer side to him here.
- Cornwell builds so much tension throughout the story; it seems like Gault is almost omnipotent and unbeatable while Kay feels more and more trapped by him.
- The scene where Kay meets Gault’s parents is well-written; both his mother and father show more have struggled so hard with what their son has become and they are dealing with in very different ways. They were very tragic figures and Cornwell did a good job at showing us that they were also victims of Gault in their own way.
- The final New York scene is clever and I like that Lucy’s skills are also needed to help beat Gault (along with police in New York); it isn’t just Scarpetta against the killer.

What I didn’t like:
- Near the start of the book Scarpetta says that she has been chasing Gault for ‘several years.’ I am really confused as to how time passes in this series. If we add up the amount of time that has passed between Post-Mortem to now, it must be about twelve years yet no one has aged except Lucy who has gone from being thirteen in P-M to being in her early twenties by FPF. Everyone else, including Scarpetta, is still in their mid-forties.
- I agree with some of the other reviewers here that the final confrontation with Gault was way too short. In less than a paragraph he is stabbed and killed. After such a long build-up I felt like we should’ve seen more of an interaction between Kay and Gault. show less

This was the sixth instalment in the series featuring Dr Kay Scarpetta, Chief Medical Examiner for the Commonwealth of Virginia, and may have marked the beginning of the decline. The early books in the series had all been excellent, and I remember eagerly awaiting the publication of each new addition to the canon. However, I remember first time around feeling that this one was a little weaker than its predecessors, and that maybe Patricia Cornwell was starting to try to pin gold from straw.

This was also the third novel to revolve around the gross misdeeds of Temple Gault, a psychopath whose ingenuity blended with sheer taste for evil had first appeared in Cruel and Unusual, and then again in The Body Farm.

Many of the customary elements show more of a Cornwell novel are in place – Marino seems as jaundiced and bigoted as ever, although Kay’s niece Lucy Farinelli is slightly less obnoxious than expected.

The book opens with a murder in Central Park in the snow in the run up to Christmas. The police are unable to identify the female victim, but the way that the body has been left betrays many of the signature traits associated with Gault. His involvement is rapidly concerned when more of his self-aggrandising twists are also found.

This time the science played a smaller part than in the previous books, and I wonder if this was one reason why it felt more flimsy than its predecessors. In the earlier books, one of the appealing characteristics had been the deployment of the writer’s considerable knowledge of forensic science.

It was still enjoyable, even for a second time nearly thirty years on, but the appeal of the earlier books, which were rightly universally acclaimed, had started to fade. show less

I cannot help but think that this style of thriller--it is not really a mystery--errs by being over done. I perversely begin to almost root for Temple Gault. He is almost too mythical. Real killers are evil, but also banal and shabby. Some shabbiness comes through in his drug addiction, but he is just too clever. Stories with real insight into police and ME procedure and real insight into the psychopathic criminal mind are much more satisfying.

Another great book from Madame Medical Investigator Author Patricia Cornwell. Always well-researched, this time the book causes Dr. Kay Scarpetta, Marino and of course, FBI Agent Benton Wesley to investigate the death of a frozen naked woman propped openly in Central Park. Their path leads them to the parents of a psychotic serial killer, one of whom can see nothing wrong about her son and the other parent who would only see his if pointing a shotgun at the son's face. The woman's identity is a shock, as is Scarpetta's handiness with a side-arm. A must-read!

Despite a somewhat abrupt and rushed ending after three novels of drawn out suspense, Cornwell does not let up in 'From Potter's Field.' Excellently told and paced well, Cornwell's 6th book in the Scarpetta series is a rollercoaster adventure which follows Scarpetta, Marino and Wesley as they try to catch the serial killer Temple Gault, who is haunting the country.

Only 9 stars because of the ending, but also because the depiction of Gault at times is contradictory, meaning that the reader is left feeling slightly confused about him. Despite being the calculated criminal mastermind we are led to believe he is, moving around the country with ease: leaving no trace evidence, hacking into the FBI's computer system and speaking fluent show more Italian; we are led to believe he is also hooked on crack and desperate for money, meaning that he is reckless, against premeditative. You'd think after three novels following him, he'd be an easy character to grasp, but I found myself feeling like I was reading about 2 serial killers, with very different personalities. show less

So glad to be done with this extended Temple Gault plot, and it will be interesting to see if Cornwell reverts to a one-mystery-per-book format in the next one. The most fascinating part of this was Kay's interrogation of Gault's parents, and it was over too soon. The rest of the book was made up with extensive travelling back and forth between New York, Virginia and South Carolina. The relationships between Kay and her niece Lucy as well as between Kay and Wesley are not developed or resolved much at all.
I expected the final confrontation with Gault to be climactic, and it was, but there was little denouement or resolution to the tale; Gault's reasons, motivations, most of his history are not explored. Although the chase of him was show more pretty suspenseful and detailed, I don't feel very satisfied with the case as a whole. Hopefully, though, now that he's been caught, we can get back to the basics of Kay's expertise and finding killers because of clues a Medical Examiner would find on the body. show less