mystery. Another good Scarpetta yarn

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! ( )

Another good story that just has something “missing”. The hook just isn’t there. And the big showdown between the protagonist and the antagonist, that was built up the whole book, and actually even books before, just felt rushed wasted. Kinda disappointing since there really is a lot of promise here... ( )

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 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. ( )

I found this the most gripping and tense of the Kay Scarpetta books so far, only let down by an ending that did not match all that had gone before it. ( )