It's late on Saturday night and I am not tired yet due to eating a very late dinner because I didn't get back from hiking with a friend until after 7:30 pm. We hiked NINE miles today in the deep woods of the Lake George Wild Region near Black Mountain. We hiked to 3 deep woods ponds. And I am TIRED!! But I can't fall asleep yet so I'll write this book review.
This book is the latest in the Kay Scarpetta series for those of you who are Patricia Cornwell fans.
The author's last 2 Scarpetta books didn't do much for me. And in fact, I was starting to get tired of her books featuring the chief medical examiner character. But......this book grabbed my attention right away because it went back to a "bad guy" character introduced in earlier books. I had the sense the author was about to wrap up a long piece of the main character's life.
Story Summary
Kay Scarpetta is down in Georgia after flying in from Boston, to meet with a woman in the Georgia Prison for Women who is there for being a convicted sex offender. She also happens to be the mother of a vicious and smart killer. A girl. Against the advice of her husband, Benton Wesley, the FBI criminal intelligence agent, she is determined to hear the woman out and find out exactly what happened to her former deputy chief, Jack Fielding, who just so happened to have been murdered 6 months ago.
The quest is not only professional, it is also personal. As the director of the new Cambridge Forensic Center in MA, and with her connection to the Department of Defense, Dr Scarpetta has serious reasons to learn more about a string of murders that she feels are linked to Fielding's death. The murder of a prominent Savannah family years earlier, a young woman on death row, and other unexplainable deaths that begin to occur are all making Scarpetta wonder if they are related, who is behind them, and why.
Scarpetta discovers some connections that compel her to conclude that what she thought had ended with Fielding's death, and an attempt on her own life, is really only the beginning of something much more destructive. It's a plot of conspiracy and potential terrorism on an international scale! Scarpetta is the only one who can stop it!
My Thoughts
This book was fast paced although it got bogged down for me in parts when reading about all the various chemicals and poisons that can be fatal. A little too "scientific" for me in places. Some of those sections I simply skimmed over!
I thought her bringing Benton and Lucy down to Georgia (if you are Cornwell fans you will know who these characters are) was brilliant because it really showed some new sides to their characters and to her relationship with them.
One character who has appeared in other Kay Scarpetta mysteries appears again in this one and I was blown away by what the author did towards the end in regards to this character.
On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the highest, I rate this book a 9.
I feel this book is appropriate for ages 17 and older. (mature content involved)
If you want to try a new mystery series with compelling characters, read the Kay Scarpetta series but begin with the very first novel: Postmortem. There are 19 Kay Scarpetta novels and I have read all of them sequentially. The author features Kay and other people close to her in all of her books. It's easy though to pick up on the story at any point/any novel as she often goes into a little background throughout the beginning of each book.
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