I know I said I would never buy another Patricia Cornwell book, but in my defense, I was going to NYC for the weekend and it (Scarpetta) was on sale at Smiths. Not as good a price as Costco, but I wasn’t there. Anyway, I needed a brainless, quick read for the 5 hour flight to JFK. And that is exactly what it is. Actually, it is not half bad (which probably means that it is only half good). The Scarpetta books have been getting worse and worse since they killed off Benton, but made a decidedly downward spiral to awfulness since they brought him back from the dead with some lame story about having to hide out for some reason I can’t really even remember now it was so dumb. I do want to know who the poor stiff was whose face Scarpetta identified and they cremated.
However, this book does redeem the series somewhat. The characters are much less angry, pissy, and just plain unlikeable. Marino is on the road to rehabilitation and redemption. Lucy is still quite unlikeable. And I don’t think it has anything to do with her orientation. She is just a nasty, snarky woman who wants to be a man. I do think Cornwell needs to look for some new plot devices. How many stalkers and/or colleagues can Scarpetta have that want to possess/kill and or ruin her professionally before it all seems absurd? Also, how about those seemingly random crimes in a city of millions of people that somehow end up being related to each other and the stalker/colleague-killer/ruiner.
But if you are on a long plane ride and need a diversion, this is not awful. It’s not a ringing endorsement, but better than Trace, BlowFly, Predator and Book of the Dead.
