Product Description

Physically and psychologically bruised by her encounter with the killer Chandonne, Dr Kay Scarpetta has to leave her home in the hands of the police team investigating the attack. She finds shelter with an old friend, Anna Zenner, but it is not the haven of security she needs when she discovers that Anna has been sub- poenaed to appear before a Grand Jury which is investigating Scarpetta for murder. Kay knows she is being framed and she also knows she can trust no-one. Meanwhile it appears that Chandonne killed a woman in New York before his murderous spree in Virginia, but when Scarpetta looks more closely into that case with the NY prosectuor Jaime Berger, proof of his guilt is far from certain - in fact she begins to believe that he may not be the perpetrator of any of the crimes he is accused of. As she follows the forensic trail to the real killer she gradually realises that someone has been spinning a web for years with the aim of entrapping her. Who is it, and why are they so desperate to be rid of her? Visit the author's own website on www.patricia- cornwell.com

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14196 in Books
• Published on: 2001-06-04
• Released on: 2001-06-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 565 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
What is peculiarly impressive about Patricia Cornwell's new addition to her popular series about the pathologist Kay Scarpetta, The Last Precinct, is that it is a book in which everything is up for grabs and all is at stake. Murders we thought settled for good in previous books, with guilt allocated and people arrested or killed, suddenly come bubbling to the surface again. Kay finds herself accused of the killing of difficult Deputy Police Chief Diane Bray, and of framing the deformed psychopath who killed Diane and burst into Kay's home with murderous intent. Even the hideous death of Kay's lover Benton, several books ago, turns out to have been more complicated than we thought. Kay finds herself in jeopardy several times over with her headstrong lesbian niece, her only entirely reliable ally. This is a book in which Cornwell takes her heroine into new areas--we get the same amount of complicated forensic lore, but there is a new personal urgency to it, a sense that detection is not a game. Kay's relationships with colleagues have always been prickly, but here they become more problematic than ever before; Cornwell's admirers will be pleased by this, her most tense and nervy book for years. --Roz Kaveney This review refers to the hardcover edition of this title.

Review
'When she is this good, she is hard to beat.' New Statesman 'Forget the pretenders. Cornwell reigns.' Mirror

Mirror
'Forget the pretenders. Cornwell reigns.'

Customer Reviews

The agony of Scarpetta's life continues without much relief
Finishing one of Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta novels is never a cathartic experience and this certainly holds true for this one. "The Last Precinct" is unusual because it picks up within 24 hours of where the previous Scarpetta novel, "Black Notice," left off (usually much more time has passed with things happening like people getting blown up by bombs or something equally significant). Scarpetta is still reeling from the attempt by Jean-Baptiste Chandonne, a.k.a. Le Loup-Garou or The Werewolf." It is insufficient to say that you if you have not read "Black Notice" you will have trouble following the events in this novel, because "The Last Precinct" does some major revisionist history on virtually every major person and event in Scarpetta's life, particularly Benton. The main narrative thread in this novel is that, in a grotesque turn of events, Scarpetta is implicated in the brutal murder of Diane Bray, Chandonne's previous victim and one of Scarpetta's many nemises. It seems Scarpetta is not going to get away from being victimized from this most recent deranged killer to cross her path.

As always, the forensic details in Crowmell's novels are fascinating. Most crime fiction glosses over such things and even in Scarpetta's world rather obvious scientific facts have to be hammered home to the idiots in power over and over again. But these novels are always much more are Scarpetta's relationships with the people around here than the demented killers she is helping to track down. I always look forward to finding out what is up with Lucy in each novel: having given up on the FBI and now ATF, Lucy is ready to enter the private sector (it seems she's been doing some interesting things in her spare time). The novel's title refers to a newly formed investigative unit run by Lucy's old ATF boss, Teun McGovern. But the name takes on darken significance as more of this immense and convoluted plot are revealed. Like Scarpetta, we are asked to reconsider some of the major events in these novels in light of new and most revealing information.

In "The Last Precinct" the pivotal characters are a pair of women the professional equals of Scarpetta and the best parts of the book are her interactions with them. The first is a familiar face, Dr. Anna Zenner, who becomes Scarpetta's de facto counselor, a move that could end up hurting our heroine as much as it helps. The second is Jaime Berger, a first-rate prosecutor from New York who will apparently be handling much more than the Chandonne case, which is being moved to NYC for the worst of political reasons. This also a shadowy behind the scenes figure who has a big impact: Pete Marino's estranged son Rocky, a New York lawyer with mob connections who will be defending Chandonne, just to make things really interesting.

When you finish reading "The Last Precinct" you will certainly not feel a sense of cleansing relief. It is not because of the violent deaths and the detailed autopsies, but rather because with Cornwell it is never really over. At best Scarpetta has a chance to catch her breath before the next round of horrors for which she is the inevitable focal point begins again. Maybe this is just the middle part of an epic trilogy that will finally get us to the point where we can believe justice has been served, but I really have to doubt it given every other book in the series.

Disappointing change in style and feeling.
Having received 'The Last Precinct' as a Christmas present, I decided to re-read all the Kay Scarpetta novels again straight through. The process took me a number of months as I can only read late at night and I really wanted to savour them all again ( some of them for the third time ). At last I came to Last Precinct and I was really quite excited at embarking upon a new story. I was quite disappointed. It was as though someone was impersonation Patricia Cornwell and was trying to write like her. The relationships were definitely not the same, particularly the descriptive elements of her relationship with Pete. It was as if she really did not care enough any more. Even her relationship with Lucy was different. As I had read all the series one after the other, it was particularly noticable. Please, please, get back to the old emotional Kay. I am waiting eagerly for the next book. I have, by the way just started reading Kathy Reichs and I do not as yet agree with the critics that she is 'better than Cornwell'. I think that ,like me, she has read all Patricia Cornwells series because some of the descriptions are so similar in their outline. However she has not even started to get close to the relationship descriptions that epitomise Patricia Cornwells books. Her characters are real to me.

The Last Precinct
Considering the length of the book, very little actually happens. Scarpetta again finds herself in the middle of another campaign to destroy her. Not a bad book but where is this series going, what's happening to the characters? Thankfully Lucy is not around much but when she is we discover that Superwoman has added another string to her bow. She is an internet millionaire. Whoopee. Despite Scarpetta constantly telling us how beautifull, smart, funny and wonderful Lucy is, Cornwell constantly fails to give any evidence that this is actually the case. Scarpetta herself is not as sympathetic this time round either. It's difficult to care that her life is falling apart when she appears to have no awareness of her shortcomings and her lack of tolerance for anyone who fails to meet her Everest sized standards is galling when most of the plot is driven by her own bad judgement. It is a shame as Scarpetta at her best is a fantastic character. Cornwell makes you understand why this woman does the job she does. Hopefully the next book will be better.