This author is one of my favorite crime scene/mystery writers. I've been reading her Dr Kay Scarpetta series since the first one came out in 1991. I've read every single one, in order. This latest one didn't disappoint.
STORY SUMMARY
Dr. Kay Scarpetta, forensic pathologist, has returned to where it all began: she is back in Alexandria, Virginia as the chief medical examiner. She has been away for many years, living in Boston with her husband Wesley Benton, an FBI profiler. Now she is back in VA and she is about to deal with corruption and a legacy of neglect regarding the medical examiner's office. She no longer has Rose (her secretary of many years) and instead has Maggie who is extremely overbearing and nosy. Benton is no longer with the FBI but instead is a forensic psychologist with the U.S. Secret Service. They are actually living in a very old home in Old Town Alexandria and her office is 5 miles from the Pentagon in a post-pandemic world. There has been civil unrest as well as political unrest for months.
After just a few weeks on the job, she is called to a crime scene on the railroad tracks that run through one of the national parks. A woman's body has been crudely displayed and her throat was cut down to the spine. As Scarpetta begins to follow the trail and all of the clues, it leads scarily close to her own historic neighborhood. And then she learns about another woman's body discovered near the Potomoc River off the very same running trail. What is going on? Does Old Town Alexandria have a serial killer on their hands??
Meanwhile, a catastrophe is happening in a top secret outer space laboratory. It's endangering at least 2 scientists on board. Because Kay has been appointed to the highly classified Doomsday Commission that specializes in sensitive national security cases, she is summoned to the White House and given the task of finding out exactly what happened. As she works remotely on the first ever outer space crime scene, she discovers that the dead woman found on the tracks might be related to the space crime!
Will she really be able to guide 2 American scientists through an autopsy in outer space, from the inside of the White House??
Read this to find out!
MY THOUGHTS
Well. I loved the characters Dr Kay Scarpetta, her husband Wesley Benton, and her niece Lucy. I was upset to find out about Lucy's partner and adopted little boy (I won't say what happens as I don't want to spoil it for you). I was also a bit annoyed that Pete Marino is now married to Kay's sister Dorothy and living near by. But....it does make for good drama. I have come to love Dr Kay Scarpetta and if I was smart enough in the sciences and math, I would have loved to pursue forensic pathology. It fascinates me along with the psychological profiling that Benton's character engages in.
The characters have been developed over the years so the author gets right into the mystery/drama.
I found it a bit dragged down for a bit in the beginning but once she got to the White House, things really picked up and the book moves very quickly after that.
The ending seemed a bit abrupt to me. It's like all of a sudden things are wrapped up efficiently and quickly. And the perpetrator was not someone I suspected at all!
This series will be interesting from now on since Scarpetta seems to have come full circle. I'm wondering if the author is going to retire her soon.
In my opinion, this book is appropriate for ages 14 and older.
On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the highest, I rate this a 9.
1 comment:
Hi Faith. This sounds very interesting especially since we stayed right in Old Town Alexandria last summer and will do so again next summer. I haven't read any of this author's books, so maybe I can't start with this one, but I might get it and try anyway. Thanks for the review.
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