Patricia Cornwell--and Dr. Scarpetta--are back! After a couple of very forgettable outings, they return (almost) to their top form.
"Book of the Dead," the 15th novel in Patricia Cornwell's Dr. Kay Scarpetta series, brings all of the old, familiar characters together again. Dr. Scarpetta, formerly the Virginia Medical Examiner, has relocated once again, this time to Charleston, South Carolina. She's set up an independent forensics lab and morgue and takes referrals from law enforcement agencies that lack the facilities or the funds to do her level of research.
Dr. Scarpetta's niece, Lucy, is running security for her; Benton's back in the picture, but currently living and working in Boston; Rose, the Doctor's loyal secretary, has followed her to South Carolina, as has Pete Marino, her troubled former cop friend and associate.
A Dead Tennis Star
"Book of the Dead" begins with Kay and Benton in Rome, helping to investigate the brutal death of a 16-year-old American tennis star. The unusual crime has left few clues, but what they do have lead to Bari, the Venice, to Iraq, and to a starved and abused unclaimed child found dead on the South Carolina shore, not far from Dr. Scarpetta's office. How do they all tie together?
Dr. Self
"Book of the Dead" also revives a bit character from earlier novels, an "over-the-top" television psychiatrist who envies Kay and blames her for a recent unfavorable court decision. Wherever Dr. Scarpetta goes in this case, Dr. Marilyn Self seems to be involved. She recently had Drew Martin on her show, she's been writing to Marino, and she seemed to have received correspondence from the killer. Now she's volunteered for Benton's Harvard Study. What exactly does the manic-depressive doctor want from Kay and her friends?
"Book of the Dead," which refers to the morgue log book into which each body is entered, marks a return for Cornwell to the core Scarpetta story and is a marked improvement over her last several novels. However, the character development of the gripping early works in this series is lacking from this effort. New readers will find little with which to identify in these two-dimensional portrayals. Longtime readers will be left with a feeling that their copy of the book was missing several critical pages.
About Patricia Cornwell
Patricia Cornwell is the mother of forensic crime fiction. Long before CSI or "Bones," there was Dr. Scarpetta. Cornwell, a North Carolina native, is the author of 23 books, including 15 in this series. A graduate of Davidson College, Ms. Cornwell has worked as a newspaper reporter and an analyst for the Virginia Medical Examiner's office. She divides her time between Richmond and Los Angeles.
