Product Description

Christmas had never been a particularly good time for Dr Kay Scarpetta. Although a holiday for most, it always seem to heighten the alienation felt by society's violent fringe; and that usually means more work for Scarpetta, Virginia's Chief Medical ExaminerI. The body was naked, female and found propped against a fountain in a bleak area of New York's Central Park. Her apparent manner of death points to a modus operandi that is chillingly familiar: the gunshot wound to the head, the sections of skin excised from the body, the displayed corpse - all suggest that Temple Brooks Gault, Scarpetta's nemesis, is back at work. Calling on all her reserves of courage and skill, and the able assistance of colleagues Marino and Wesley, Scarpetta must track this most dangerous of killers in pursuit of survival as well as justice - heading inexorably to an electrifying climax amid the dark, menacing labyrinths of the New York subway. For more about Patricia Cornwell and her books visit her website at www.patricia-cornwell.com

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17601 in Books
• Published on: 2000-04-13
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 405 pages

Review
'Vividly compulsive, this warrants a new award; winner of the golden scalpel' Mail On Sunday 'Cornwell is on magnificent form' Evening Standard 'Grippingly tense' The Times

Evening Standard
'Cornwell is on magnificent form'

The Times
'Grippingly tense'

Customer Reviews

From Potter's Field
'From Potters Field' is the sixth book in the Kay Scarpetta series written by Patricia Cornwell. Scarpetta's nemesis Temple Gault is back, this time in New York City where he has murdered a young woman in Central Park on Christmas Eve. This begins yet another chase of this ruthless and extremely clever killer for Scarpetta, Marino and Wesley and another series of brutal murders.

Once again Cornwell has written another fantastic Scarpetta novel and this is one of the most exciting of the series so far. The action is non-stop and is full of unexpected twists and some of the most nerve-racking scenes in the series yet. The on/off love affair between Benton and Kay does begin to get a little tired and Kay's neice, Lucy is as annoying as ever, but other than that it is a top quality thriller that is on top form from Cornwell.

Not her best
The problem with all the Kay Scarpetta books is that they're so completely unbelievable. Why the hell doesn't she just do her job, perform the autopsies, write a report and go home to bed? Why does she get personally involved in every investigation, and end up chasing the bad guys around the place? Why is she always pursued to the ends of the Earth (or at least all over America) by deranged villains who've decided to make her life a misery, for no reason that makes any sense? And how come these villains always seem to know exactly where she is and what she's doing, so that they can surface at her most vulnerable moments? Well, obviously, because there wouldn't be that much of a story if they didn't, I suppose.
The result, in this book, is a kind of mish-mash. There are some good bits, but a lot of it is just silly, and I'm beginning to get annoyed with the author's increasingly sloppy writing. What, exactly, is an 'older man'? Older than what? Older than a baby? Or a teenager? Or a pensioner? Almost everyone Scarpetta met in this book was an 'older man' or an 'older woman'. She seems to use this expression simply because she can't be bothered to invent an age for a particular minor character.
And I know the author is female, but some of the mood swings, irrational actions and leaps of intuition performed by Scarpetta are really beginning to bug me. I might give her books one more try, but after that I'm quitting, because there are so many better writers out there.

Good read but arrogant protagonist
Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta's series are very entertaining and manages to keep avid fans like me hook but reading this book, I am begininng to dislike the main character, she is only the Chief Medical Examiner of Virginia but it seems she is the only capable person of solving all the violent crimes in the whole of US.

Questions that crept through my mind as I read this book: how come the murderers are always shot/killed by Scarpetta at the end of the book? And Dr. Scarpetta is getting more and more arrogant in her views, putting Marino down through certain sections in the book; Benton Wesley is just like a useless sidekick to her and just the go-between FBI and her. No one is better than her; she has all the answers, and the Chief Medical of Examiner of New York can't hold a candle to her as well. She does not work along with others and thinks she is better than others and have descriptions like "my neighborhood was one of the wealthiest in Richmond" - mentioning her Mercedes car unnecessary, etc.

She is always right while the others who have more experience in solving crimes (basing on their job titles, anyway) are clueless and she points out the obvious all the time.

I'm in the midst of deciding whether to read the next in the series....if the Scarletta (haha) character becomes more arrogant in the next few books, I think I will switch to Temperance.