Product Description

A sadistic serial killer, the weapon a deadly virus Dublin, Ireland and Richmond, Virginia: separated by thousands of miles - linked by murder. For Dr Kay Scarpetta a lecture stint in Ireland provides the perfect opportunity to find out if the murders on both sides of the Atlantic are indeed connected. Five dismembered, beheaded bodies were found in Ireland five years ago - now four have been discovered in the States. But the tenth corpse in Virginia is different. There are vital discrepancies, and an indication that the elderly victim was already seriously ill. A copy-cat killing. Ghoulish, perhaps, but not unusual. And then abject terror grips Scarpetta and her colleagues when the next body is found. The circumstances of death broadcast a clear and horrifying message: the killer is armed with the most lethal weapon on earth - smallpox. For more about Patricia Cornwell and her books visit her website on www.patricia-cornwell.com

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4826 in Books
• Published on: 2000-05-18
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 370 pages

Review
'For all the gory detail Cornwell's novels are oddly comforting. Virtue will out' Independent 'No one is better than Cornwell ...' Express on Sunday 'Exciting and tense' The Times

Express on Sunday
'No one is better than Cornwell ...'

The Times
'Exciting and tense'

Customer Reviews

Unnatural Exposure
You could review this book, number eight in the Dr Kay Scarpetta books by Patricia Cornwell, one of two ways.

On the one hand it is another good solid addition to the Scarpetta series of thrillers. It has all the usual ingredients, gory discoverings, Scarpetta's scientific examinations, a ruthless killer and the usual accompanying characters.

One the other hand it is another good solid addition to the Scarpetta series of thrillers that offers nothing new to what has gone before. Indeed some of the regular characters are becoming so changed from their original conception you really wonder if you want to carry on with the series. There's not enough of Pete Marino in this book for a start, niece Lucy is still an enormous pain in the neck and Benton Wesley seems to be becoming a needy wimp with his constant whinging to Scarpetta. Scarpetta herself is so driven at times she must be an absolute nightmare to work for.

What the series really needs is an insertion of some new blood, or at the very least the re-introduction of some the excellent minor characters we saw in previous offerings. Why can't sister Dorothy, who has only made one actual appearance in "The Body Farm", or even lawyer Nicholas Grueman who appeared in "Cruel and Unusual" reappear in some form or another to give the series a much needed injection of life.

Ridiculous ending - must try harder
Right up to the end, this book is excellent - making the obvious allowance that Scarpetta just has to keep sticking her elegant nose into the police investigation and the police, for some unaccountable reason, don't tell her to shove off, as they certainly would in real life.
But the ending! I won't reveal the name of the villain, but it's almost as if the author got to about page 340 without having the slightest idea who the murderer was, and then picked the single most unlikely character in the entire book as the bad guy - or girl, in this case.
And this girl is a REALLY bad girl. She's infected her mother with smallpox that she stole two decades earlier from a laboratory in England, and has managed to keep viable in all that time. She then cut her mother into small pieces with an electric saw, after lopping her head off while she was still alive, and photographed the result. Then she filled atomiser sprays with smallpox virus and sent them out to selected victims. Oh, and shot to death an intruder along the way. But why? Why this catalogue of discriminate - and indiscriminate - assassination? Well, she didn't get the promotion she was hoping for and, as we all know, hell hath no fury like a woman who doesn't get the job she wants, so it all makes really good sense. It doesn't, of course. It makes no sense at all.

ANOTHER KAY SCARPETTA MYSTERY...
This is a somewhat interesting, Dr. Kay Scarpetta mystery, replete with its usual attention to forensic detail, as well as a myriad of subplots, contributing to the tension that is tautly maintained throughout the book. Though not her best novel, this one still manages to entertain the reader.

Once again, Dr. Scarpetta, Chief Medical Examiner, finds herself on the hunt for a serial killer, when the body of an elderly, dismembered woman is discovered in a Virginia landfill. Moreover, a mutated, high tech, small pox variant virus appears to be on the loose, and Dr. Scarpetta finds herself receiving taunting emails from the alleged killer, signing as "deadoc". Couple all this with an overly ambitious and unscrupulous law enforcement agent named Percy Ring who arrests an obviously innocent man for the elderly woman's death, and the reader has an intriguing mystery to unravel.

Homicide Detective Pete Marino is pivotal to the success of this book. His relationship and repartee with Dr. Scarpetta contribute to many of the book's highlights, and it is he who gives dimension to the book, as he is simply a wonderful, down to earth character. Dr. Scarpetta's relationship with FBI Agent Wesley Benton is less memorable, as he is on the periphery of the story, for the most part, though in the end he provides closure for the torch Dr. Scarpetta was carrying for her ex-lover, Mark.

The only real fly in the ointment, however, is the continued appearance of Dr. Scarpetta's niece, Lucy, who is an obnoxious character. In the real world, Lucy would not be allowed to hold the positions of responsibility that she does in the book, due to her compete immaturity. She is a loose cannon waitng to misfire at any moment. It flies in the face of her professionalism that Dr. Scarpetta seems unable to fathom this, but blood is thicker than water.

The ending is somewhat surprising, though in retrospect, the clues are, in fact, there for the reader to discern the identity of the killer. The problem is that the resolution occurs almost too abruptly, as if the author had only a limited number of pages in which to wrap it all up. While the book moves somewhat slowly for the most part, the last few chapters move at lightening speed. A better editing job may have helped make this book into a more cohesive, better written mystery. Still, Kay Scarpetta fans will find something to enjoy in this offering.