The Bone Bed Mass Market Author: Visit Amazon's Patricia Cornwell Page | Language: English | ISBN:
0425261360 | Format: PDF
The Bone Bed Mass Market Description
From Booklist
On the same day she receives a mystifying video e-mail about an American anthropologist missing in Canada, Kay Scarpetta retrieves a woman’s body from Massachusetts Bay (after disentangling it from a massive sea turtle) and testifies at the trial of a billionaire industrialist accused of murdering his missing wife. Disparate cases tend to connect in crime fiction, and soon Scarpetta—with her chief investigator, Pete Marino, temporarily sidelined—is searching for what her husband, FBI profiler Benton Wesley, believes to be a serial killer. Unfortunately, one of the cases doesn’t quite fit the pattern. And then there’s Scarpetta herself, now feeling both her age and some friction in her marriage. She’s gazing appreciatively at younger men, including her newly hired deputy at the Cambridge Forensic Center, Dr. Luke Zenner, while Wesley admits that his younger female partner is in love with him and has tried to lure him to bed. Which distracts Scarpetta when the killer, inevitably, targets her. Cornwell’s forensics are fine, but she still seems to be struggling to recover the freshness and verve that formerly distinguished the Scarpetta series. Longtime fans may not be bothered, but others may find reading this more a duty than a pleasure. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: As the twentieth entry in the Kay Scarpetta series, this is bound to be promoted heavily. Shortcomings aside, it extends the personal stories of a handful of characters whom fans have followed for years. --Michele Leber
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Review
“The tight plot keeps a local focus, the disconnected deaths are neatly tied together…and there are plenty of stomach-churning autopsies performed with cutting-edge equipment.”—The New York Times Book Review
“An ingenious murder method, more hours in the mortuary and forensics lab than usual, an uncharacteristically muffled killer, and all the trademark battles among the regulars and every potential ally who gets in their way.”—Kirkus Reviews
“The story is nail-bitingly violent and suspenseful, and it highlights Scarpetta’s signature survival instinct, brilliant logic and attention to personal relationships.”—The City Paper (Nashville, TN)
See all Editorial Reviews
- Series: A Scarpetta Novel (Book 20)
- Mass Market Paperback: 496 pages
- Publisher: Berkley; Reprint edition (September 3, 2013)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0425261360
- ISBN-13: 978-0425261361
- Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 4.2 x 1.2 inches
- Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
What can I say about Scarpetta number twenty? I didn't dislike the book, but in my opinion, Cornwell has yet to produce a follow-up book that is in anyway comparable to the quality of her first six to eight books. This review does contain a few mild spoilers!
Before I air my complaints, I will give credit where credit is due. Bone Bed reintroduces readers to the Kay Scarpetta they met in Virginia. For the first time in I don't know how many books, Scarpetta is back in her diving gear and working the crime scenes like she used too. That is the one thing I really appreciated about this book. Kay is sharp. I had forgotten what an impressive investigator she could be. As she goes through a crime scene, very little escapes her attention. Her intelligence, ambition, and compassion are magnetic. I can't speak for everyone, but that is the character that captured my attention and held my interest in 90s.
With that said, I found her supporting characters highly annoying and redundant. Marino and Benton are still stuck in a downward spiral of regret and resentment. I know that real life issues (you know, your average faked death and attempted rape) don't go away over night, but I think Cornwell has taken it to a level that is entirely unnecessary. I for one, am very tired of hearing the sad song that refuses to end. Benton played dead; Mario got drunk and tried to play hooky. Naturally, these flaws in character will keep the two of them from being best friends and undoubtably leave some skeletons in the closet, but Cornwell has strung it out to the degree that she has allowed it to monopolize the chemistry that made the characters so captivating in the beginning.
Another issue I had with this book is that I felt like I had read it already.
Cornwell's Scarpetta books have always had their flaws, like Kay's enemies never getting their comeuppance, and Kay's addiction to being betrayed and the world champion victim even as she is supposed to be so awesome smart and powerful. Other annoyances are continual buildups to climaxes that never happen, for example Marino threatening to stroke out over every little thing, and Lucy's non-stop drama over nothing (geez Lucy is obnoxious), and characters and subplots that get introduced, are a big deal, and then are dropped and never resolved. But the complex plots, good action, and complex trails of clues were enjoyable and interesting. Then along about "Point of Origin" the Scarpetta series slid off the rails and never made it back. Benton Wesley died, but then miraculously came back in "Blow Fly." But in the interim anything that was halfway interesting about him was lost, and he became a stiff wooden bore.
In "Blow Fly" Cornwell changed from writing in the first-person from Scarpetta's viewpoint to a weird present-tense third person. It's a rambling shapeless stream-of-consciousness, and "Blow Fly" is the last Scarpetta book I read to the end. I've tried every one since, and they all lose me in the first few chapters.
"Bone Bed" is billed as a comeback, a return to the old Scarpetta, Cornwell getting back on track. Nah. Don't think so. It's back to first-person Kay, but it's still rambling stream-of-consciousness. It starts out with Kay working alone in her sleek new office, and she's all agitated and freaked out because it sounds like someone is prowling in the building, and nobody else is supposed to be there. So does she get up and look? No, she just sits and frets. Then Lucy comes in, and Kay freaks out some more.
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