Book Review: Patricia Cornwell's CHAOS

CHAOS
HARPERCOLLINS – @HarperCollins

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

AUTHOR: Patricia Cornwell – @1pcornwell
ISBN: 978-0-06-243668-9; hardcover (November 15, 2016)
398pp, B&W, $28.99 U.S.,$35.99

Chaos is a 2016 crime novel from best-selling author Patricia Cornwell.  It is the 24th novel in Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta series, which began with the 1990 novel, Postmortem.   Chaos finds Dr. Scarpetta investigating the mysterious death of a 20-something young woman, and the clues point to an unlikely and perhaps impossible means of death.

Chaos opens on a Wednesday, September 9th, a particularly harried day for Dr. Kay Scarpetta, forensic pathologist and director of the Cambridge Forensic Center (CFC).  The hustle and bustle is leading towards an event at Harvard in which Kay will share the stage with an old colleague.  However, in the sweltering heat of a late Summer day, a young woman is killed shortly after meeting Kay.  The investigation is also complicated by a cyberbully who calls himself “Tailend Charlie,” and it seems that Kay isn't his only target.

After reading 2014's Flesh and Blood and 2015's Depraved Heart, Chaos is the third Kay Scarpetta novel (and also the third Patricia Cornwell novel) that I have read.  Flesh and Blood read as if it were a blend of the action-adventure, mystery, and spy genres.  Depraved Heart felt like a crime novel transported into the haunted house genre.

Unpredictability is the theme of Chaos.  Practically every scene, subplot, and character entrance seems to be manipulated by a puckish game master, and in this shifting field of play, Cornwell presents Kay Scarpetta as vulnerable and exposed.  The brilliant scientific mind seems almost ordinary, a working stiff who must rely on her training, knowledge, and skill because of a homicide and an enemy that both challenge her in... well, unpredictable ways.

I guess it comes down to the simple fact that Chaos is an excellent read.  Not being able to predict what is around every literary corner makes each chapter an enticing piece of candy.  You can't eat just one, and you want still more when you get to the last tasty chapter.  And, of course, the ending of Chaos makes us eager for candy man Patricia Cornwell to offer her next treat – same time next year.

A

www.patriciacornwell.com

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


The text is copyright © 2017 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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Book Review: DEPRAVED HEART by Patricia Cornwell

DEPRAVED HEART
HARPERCOLLINS – @HarperCollins

AUTHOR: Patricia Cornwell – @1pcornw
ISBN: 978-0-06-232540-2; hardcover (October 27, 2015)
480pp, B&W, $28.99 U.S.

Depraved Heart is a 2015 crime novel from best-selling author Patricia Cornwell.  It is the 23rd novel in Cornwell's “Kay Scarpetta” series, which began with the 1990 novel, Postmortem.  Depraved Heart finds Scarpetta besieged by a spooky blast from the past when mysterious, decades-old videos appear on her phone while she is right in the middle of a suspicious death scene.

As Depraved Heart begins, medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta is in the home of Chanel Gilbert, the grown daughter of Hollywood heavy-hitter producer, Amanda Gilbert.  Chanel is dead, in what seems to be an accidental fall.  Apparently, she fell while trying to change a light bulb in her historic house, located near the Harvard campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Then, it happens.  An emergency alert sounds on Scarpetta's phone.  It heralds the arrival of a video link that lands in her text messages and seems to originate from her niece, Lucy Farinelli, a computer genius.  What instantly troubles Scarpetta is that this video link opens to a surveillance film of Lucy in her room at the FBI Academy, Washington Dormitory, Room 411, but that was almost 20 years ago!

The video not only troubles Scarpetta, but also supports her suspicions that the murder scene at the Gilbert house is suspicious.  There are more videos to come, each one making her frightened for Lucy, the niece she loves and raised as if she were her own daughter.  Are these videos connected to Chanel Gilbert's murder?  Does Lucy have a connection to Chanel?  What Scarpetta is sure of is that an old enemy is back in full force, and the machinations of this brilliant monster will make Scarpetta suspicious of everyone and everything around her.

After reading Flesh and Blood last year, I eagerly awaited the next Kay Scarpetta novel.  If Patricia Cornwell had decided to take a break from Scarpetta and produce some other book for publication this year, I would have had to turn to crack for comfort.  So I was happy when HarperCollins public relations offered reviewers a galley edition of Depraved Heart.

Where as Flesh and Blood's story traveled across the Eastern seaboard and into the Bermuda Triangle, Depraved Heart is set mainly in Chanel Gilbert's house.  And it is an old house, jealously guarding secrets and fostering lies.  No matter where Scarpetta wants to go, this haunted house calls her back.

On Cornwell's part, this is an impressive feat of writing, even for someone who has been writing novels for the better part of three decades.  It is not such much that the plot and storytelling of Depraved Heart are restrained; rather, it is that Cornwell must restrain her lead character, Scarpetta.  A woman of intelligence and discipline, Scarpetta finds her life, her loved ones, her friends, her colleagues, and her work endangered in such a way that she wants to drop the facade of reason and let the animal loose.

Not that it matters either way.  Scarpetta cannot trust her memories and her emotions are suspect.  Also, for her all skills and intellect, Scarpetta does not figure things out so much as she merely stumbles about – making discoveries as if she were a janitor finding a penny in the corner.  That is what is so troubling and simultaneously thrilling, you don't when or if the death blow is coming, and neither does our forensic god, Scarpetta.

If you wonder why book series seem to become a little less interesting with each book, it is because a series will naturally play up the “same old things.”  Usually, for things to change, the original author has to die, and the estate has to be smart enough to find a new writer or new writers that can pump life back into a series.  Patricia Cornwell proves that the Kay Scarpetta series won't need Kay Scarpetta's talents anytime soon, not when the latest book can keep even depraved hearts pounding to the very last “little bit.”

A

www.patriciacornwell.com

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux


The text is copyright © 2015 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

Book Review: FLESH AND BLOOD

FLESH AND BLOOD
HARPERCOLLINS – @HarperCollins

AUTHOR: Patricia Cornwell – @1pcornw
ISBN: 978-0-06-232534-1; hardcover (November 11, 2014)
384pp, B&W, $28.99 U.S.

Flesh and Blood is a 2014 crime novel from bestselling author Patricia Cornwell.  It is the 22nd novel in Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta series, which began with Postmortem (1990).  In Flesh and Blood, Cornwell's beloved forensic sleuth tries to unravel the mystery of “Copperhead,” a serial sniper whose killings and motives seem to strike close to Scarpetta herself.

Flesh and Blood opens on June 12, 2014, and Dr. Kay Scarpetta is going to celebrate her birthday with a much-deserved vacation.  She is about to head to Miami with her husband, Benton Wesley, an FBI profiler and intelligence analyst.  However, as they prepare to leave, Kay spots seven pennies on a wall behind her Cambridge, Massachusetts home.  The coins are all dated in 1981 and are so shiny that they could have been newly minted.

Soon afterward, her phone rings and Detective Peter Marino of the Cambridge Police Department informs Scarpetta that there has been a homicide five minutes from her home.  High school music teacher and controversial public figure, Jamal Nari, was shot to death with uncanny precision, and no one heard or saw a thing.  Soon, Scarpetta finds herself chasing a serial sniper, who is eventually dubbed “Copperhead,” because of his use of copper bullets.  Copperhead leaves behind no incriminating evidence and who seems to be several steps ahead of Scarpetta at every turn.  As more people are killed and past murders are connected to this case, Scarpetta begins to realize that her techno-genius niece, Lucy Farinelli, may be the killer.

Although I have been aware of Patricia Cornwell for over a decade, Flesh and Blood is the first novel of hers that I have read – thanks to a review copy from HarperCollins.  I have to admit that I almost stopped reading the book after a few pages.  Cornwell has a peculiar syntax and odd writing style that, at first glance, seems to be the creation of someone who has a strange way of speaking English.  Once I picked up on the rhythm of the prose, however, I had a blast reading Flesh and Blood.

I now know why Cornwell makes regular appearances on bestseller lists.  She writes page-turning crime thrillers that I had to force myself to stop reading.  Every chapter, every single one, offers masterfully crafted whodunit suspense, and there are plot twists and surprises at least every three pages.

Cornwell also offers a large window into Kay Scarpetta's mind (and a smaller one into her soul), which offers a thoughtful approach to the crime scene investigation genre.  Cornwell fills this story with lots of forensic, police, and investigative jargon, settings, and science and technology.  Cornwell also depicts Scarpetta's thought process as something that works on so many different levels, which brings the readers both emotionally and intellectually into the story.  I also found myself emotionally and intellectually invested in Flesh and Blood.  I wanted to know whodunit, but even more, I wanted to know about the people doing it.  Yes, Flesh and Blood deserves to be called by that favorite phrase of book reviewers, because it is indeed a “great read.”

A-

www.patriciacornwell.com

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux


The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog for syndication rights and fees.