Review of Patricia Cornwell's Scarpetta
Sixteenth Novel Featuring Dr Kay Scarpetta Sees a Return to Form
May 27, 2009
Patricia Cornwell's first crime novel featuring Kay Scarpetta, Postmortem, appeared over twenty years ago. In this latest outing, Scarpetta is now married to Benton Wesley – a marriage that seems to lack the passion so evident in their earlier relationship, and is dividing her time between South Carolina and New York City,
Such a hectic schedule seems to be taking its toll, not to mention the fact that Scarpetta is still reeling from the shocking sexual attack she suffered at the hands of long-time colleague Pete Marino during Book of the Dead.
Murder in New York
Yet Scarpetta is nothing if not professional, so when a young man implicated in the vicious murder of his girlfriend Terri indicates that he will talk only to Kay, she heads to New York and finds herself involved in one of her most bizarre cases yet.
Oscar Bane has voluntarily checked himself into a psychiatric ward, and has injuries which he claims were sustained by Terri's attacker when he arrived at her apartment and found her body. He also believes that he is being watched, displaying severe signs of paranoia.
Gotham Gossip
Scarpetta quickly sees that Oscar is not all that he seems, but does not believe that he was the killer. To make matters more complicated, Scarpetta herself is drawing a great deal of unwanted attention – an anonymous online gossip column called Gotham Gossip seems to be going after her, printing allegations about her past and hinting at what happened between her and Marino.
The murder plot itself is quite slim, and struggles a little to fill the 500 pages of the book. However, what marks a return to form for Cornwell is the characterisation in the novel – the relationships between the familiar faces in the series have been shaken up dramatically, and the results are much more believable than in recent Cornwell books.
New Relationships
The reader sees a sober, more thoughtful Marino, striving to make up for the mistakes he has made in the past; an edgy, strained marriage between two characters who seemed previously so much in love; and, perhaps most interestingly, a new love interest for Scarpetta's neice, the troubled and wayward Lucy.
The continued success of the Scarpetta series indicates that Cornwell's ardent fans take little notice of what the critics say, but ignore one or two holes in the plot and even the most cynical of readers will find much to enjoy in this promising instalment.
Scarpetta by Patricia Cornwell is published in paperback in the UK by Sphere (2008), ISBN 978-0-7515-3875-5.
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