Results tagged “Patricia Cornwell” from Reading
I've not read any of the Scarpetta series for a while, and picked this up for £1 in the staff booksale.
Scarpetta continues on from where Book of the Dead left off and there is just as much focus on friends and family as there is on the criminal foe. But the Kay/Marino relationship storyline isn't that convincing, and you can guess who did it quite early on.
Amazon.co.uk link: Scarpetta - Patricia Cornwell
The latest Scarpetta novel, and written in a much briefer sentence style which took me a bit of getting used to. The other odd feature which takes some getting used to is Marino's character change - whilst I don't think it's a sudden shift (but I'd need to have read Blow Fly/Trace/Predator more recently to be sure of the gradual build), but this is the first book where he is clearly so unpleasant and bent on destroying his relationship with Kay (and Benton and Lucy).
As one Amazon reviewer put it "Everything is so dark and bleak" - and that applies to the main characters just as much as the criminal storyline, so much so that having only finished the book a few days ago I can't even remember the plot - just the sadness I felt for the characters I've followed for years.
amazon.co.uk link: Book of the Dead - Patricia Cornwell
amazon.co.uk list: Kay Scarpetta Collection (in order)
Another episode from early in Dr Kay Scarpetta's career, where she still smokes and hasn't yet settled into her relationships with Marino and Benton Wesley. What makes this novel all the wierder, for someone reading the books out of order, is the part Mark plays in the plot. In fact, not just the part, but his very existence is all rather strange, upsetting the balance between all the other, more familiar, characters.
Amazon.co.uk link: Body of Evidence - Patricia Cornwell
Amazon.co.uk list: Kay Scarpetta Collection (in order)
I couldn't quite believe I'd missed out reading The Body Farm - it's one of the most well known of Patricia Cornwell's Dr Kay Scarpetta novels, and covers the two key events in the lives of Dr Kay Scarpetta, her genius neice Lucy and FBI profiler Benton Wesley. I shall say no more, other than if you like the series and haven't yet read The Body Farm, put it at the top of your Books To Read list!
Amazon.co.uk link: The Body Farm - Patricia Cornwell
Amazon.co.uk list: Kay Scarpetta Collection (in order)
Still manic at work, so a bank holiday weekend at Forty Acres offered the perfect opportunity for restocking from the second hand bookshop and the Paperback Exchange, sadly shutting down (but that allowed for plenty of purchases at rock bottom prices).
I raced through this over the bank holiday weekend at Forty Acres. The first in the Kay Scarpetta series, and a very different read from the later ones I've been reading more recently. Worth reading with care to see how the key characaters are introduced.
Amazon.co.uk link: Amazon link
Amazon.co.uk list: Kay Scarpetta Collection (in order)
Another unsettling whodunnit featuring Dr Kay Scarpetta, this time with heavy emphasis on the psychological aspects - particularly Benton's criminal profiling and the long term affects of child abuse. As the plot unfolds, you soon realise that you're not at all sure who exactly is watching who.
Amazon.co.uk link: Predator - Patricia Cornwell
Amazon.co.uk list: Kay Scarpetta Collection (in order)
Another purchase from Hereford's second hand/charity shop - as was All That Remains - and another random dip into the world of Dr Kay Scarpetta. This time I found myself somewhere in between All That Remains and Black Notice - the last two Patricia Cornwell novels that I've read. Come the end of the book, I realised that Black Notice picks up where Point of Origin finishes.
In fact, Point of Origin provides the detail on Benton's death at the hands of escaped psychopath Carrie Gethin, Lucy's manipulative former lover who Kay, Marino and Benton had (almost) put behind bars. It comes in the context of Lucy's having left the FBI and having joined a speciliast team of fire investigators (she's also learned how to fly helicopters), which comes in handy when Kay et al find themsleves investigating a series of gruesome murders that are not *quite* covered up by arson. Deliberately so, as it turns out.
Despite the many references to Carrie and Lucy's affair in the Kay Scarpetta novels I've read, I've not so far managed to find the one in which it takes place, and similiarly having seen Benton's role leap from professional rival to murdered live in lover in recent reads I seem to have managed to miss out on the part where he and Kay get it together, at his wife's expense. All of which means that I'm going to make the effort to read the series from the start.
Amazon.co.uk link: Point of Origin - Patricia Cornwell
Amazon.co.uk list: Kay Scarpetta Collection (in order)
A quick one-day read over the weekend at Walton, which came as a bit of a surprise as I'd expected this Kay Scarpetta novel to last me rather longer. Then again, it's one of the earlier instalments in the series and I'm realising that the more recent novels are much longer - Blowfly and Trace in particular.
A satisfying read though, with Kay and Marino uncovering the connection and killer behind a series of double murders that turn out to stetch back decades, and unlike many other novels featuring Kay Scarpetta, this one stretches over many months. In addtion to the murder mysteries themselves, the plot also features politics a-plenty, and bitter rivalry and deliberate obfustication between the various law enforcement agencies that get involved. In fact, everyone seems to have their own agenda; from the drugs czar who is not only one of america's most powerful women, a potential presidential candidate in fact, but also the mother of the girl whose murder opens the novel, to Benton Wesley who Kay encounters heading up the FBI team.....
Two additional points of interest in this novel, particularly if - like me - you've read some of Patricia Cornwell's later novels first: (1) it features Mark as Kay's love interest; and (2) Kay's interest in Benton Wesley is purely professional, and she dislikes and distrusts him.
Having just been to explore www.patricia-cornwell.com and finding the publication timelines, I realise that this must be the earliest Kay Scarpetta novel I've read. Clearly I need to read its two predecessors: Post Mortem and Body of Evidence - if only to learn more about Kay's relationships.
Amazon.co.uk link: All That Remains - Patricia Cornwell
Amazon.co.uk list: Kay Scarpetta Collection (in order)
It was a bit disorienting reading this novel starring chief medical examiner Kay Scarpetta, police captain Pete Marino and genius niece Lucy. All my own fault of course, given my random approach to reading Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta novels. In Unnatural Exposure which was the last one I read, Kay was still resisting Benton's charms, and the one before that, The Last Precinct, is the one that immediately follows this!
That said, I rather enjoyed the fact that everything in this novel takes on a greater significance knowing what happens next, and it would be interesting to know how far in advance Patricia Cornwell plots her novels. It would also be of interest to know whether or not the critical Amazon.co.uk reviewers read this novel in sequence, given that most of them slated it.
Set in the year following Benton's death, Black Notice covers some of the key events and characters that feature in the overarching plotline developed during the course of later novels: rival alpha-female Diane Bray, love interest (that came as a surprise!) Jay Talley and Le Loup-Garou Jean-Baptiste Chandonne.
It also shows Dr Scarpetta at her most vulnerable, barely in control of her professional life and totally at a loss how to come to terms with the grief in her personal life, let alone in a position to deal with Lucy's trigger-happy reaction to Benton's murder.
Amazon.co.uk link: Black Notice - Patricia Cornwell
Amazon.co.uk list: Kay Scarpetta Collection (in order)
After two relatively erudite novels, I felt the need to induldge in a spot of American crime - the CSI of literature, to my mind. This was the "oldest" Kay Scarpetta novel I could find on the library shelves, and it deals with a time when Scarpetta is still working out her feelings for Benton, and getting over the death of her previous lover, Mark. Lucy is in the early years of her career and still honing her skills as an FBI agent. In other parts of the plot, Patricia Cornwell offers dismembered bodies both sides of the Atlantic, and a mutant smallpox epidemic spread by postal deliveries. See, very CSI.
Amazon.co.uk link: Unnatural Exposure - Patricia Cornwell
Amazon.co.uk list: Kay Scarpetta Collection (in order)
Part of the Frinton haul, this hardback copy travelled to Herefordshire to be the first of my holiday reads.
It covers some of the events in Dr Kay Scarpetta's life story prior to those I've read before. It was good to get some of the key background, in particular the emergence of The Last Precinct, and Dr Scarpetta's departure from her beloved role as Virginia's Chief Medical Examiner.
Lots of murders to explain, and emotional angst on the part of Kay and those close to her as she has to extricate herself from position as prime suspect. I wasn't so keen on Jaime Berger, the high powered NY District Attorney, but on the other hand we do get a lot more detail on la famille Chandonne, and Rocky, Pete Marino's black sheep son.
I do think that it would have been better to have read its immediate predecessor, Black Notice, first however. That said, I've yet to read the episode in which Benton dies...
Amazon.co.uk link: The Last Precinct - Patricia Cornwell
Amazon.co.uk list: Kay Scarpetta Collection (in order)
Borrowed from Abby for holiday reading, this proved a suitable Kay Scarpetta blockbuster to occupy some of the quieter moments - such as there were - during the trip from Delhi to Kathmandu.
The focus of the plot is more concerned with Kay's niece, Lucy, and her life and relationships than the usual, older characters, but interestingly, the novel lets you see what each of those think of Lucy and her adult-relationship with Kay. Not having read the earlier novels, I didn't really get as much out of Kay's return to Virginia and her emotional response to the changes since her departure as others might do.
Amazon.co.uk link: Trace - Patricia Cornwell
Amazon.co.uk list: Kay Scarpetta Collection (in order)
Quite the scariest crime novel I've read in a while, so no surprises that I had nightmares last night, even if all the twists and turns take place in the USA. Unlike the other books covering other parts of Kay Scarpetta's life, she isn't a central character in this one, which focuses more on the people close to her and her chillingly evil arch enemies.
I've missed out on a lot of background developments by skipping straight from Cruel and Unusual to Blow Fly, but that's because the Barbican library didn't have any of the ones in between, and I'm not enough of a crime fan to actually buy the books. As and when I see any, either in the library or second hand, I'd definitely pick them up - Patricia Cornwell writes good crime!
Amazon.co.uk link: Blow Fly - Patricia Cornwell
Amazon.co.uk list: Kay Scarpetta Collection (in order)
I've not read any crime for ages, and picked this up second hand in Hereford over the summer. A good choice for a return to the genre, with a macabre story played out by a range of interesting characters. It reminds me of CSI: american-set, coroner/pathologist-investigated crime. If you enjoy that, you'll enjoy this.
Amazon.co.uk link: Cruel and Unusual - Patricia Cornwell
Amazon.co.uk list: Kay Scarpetta Collection (in order)