Member Review
Review by
Aravind R, Reviewer
Twenty-five books and Thirty-plus years old, the Kay Scarpetta series by Patricia Cornwell is a bona fide bestseller. The latest episode, Autopsy, finds Kay reprising the role of Virginia’s Chief Medical Examiner after a gap of a few years. Less than a month on the job, she feels unwelcome by her staff, especially her secretary, who are still loyal to her predecessor—a corrupt politician who is now the health commissioner of Virginia.
The latest dead body that lands on Kay’s table is that of a young woman missing both her hands, who turns out to have been involved in some high level corporate espionage that may have been the cause of her death. But, while on the investigation, she also comes to know of the recent suspicious death of a young woman in a nearby area, which was hastily concluded as accidental by the previous CME. Could there be a connection between the two deaths or is Kay simply imagining things? Before she could make any headway in the cases, she has a brush with death inside the safety of her own new home. Meanwhile, her expert assistance is needed at the Whitehouse in the wake of a bizarre incident in Space that may threaten national security. On the home front, her niece-who-may-as-well-be-her-daughter Lucy is having difficulty in coping with the loss of her partner and adopted son to Covid-19 pandemic. Though the list of challenges looks formidable, Kay is quite capable of dealing with it all, and has a few solid people, like her husband Benton Weasley and her brother-in-law Pete Marino, looking out for her.
Autopsy is the first book in the series I’ve read and I could understand the secret behind its longevity: Cornwell has created a great set of characters and armed them with cutting-edge technology, be it related to forensics or to any other science, to thrill the readers time and again. Kay Scarpetta is smart, tough and overall a very likeable character, and the solid Benton comes across as a perfect partner for her. Her relationship with her brother-in-law, Pete Marino is complex and intriguing. And Lucy, with her tech-wizardry and peculiar personality, is another interesting character. Cornwell’s characterisation of other people including the tenacious Detective Blaise Fruge, Kay’s secretary Maggie Cutbush and the slimy former CME Elvin Reddy is pretty good too. The plot of Autopsy is fast paced and presents the reader with many suspects and scenarios, and it kept me guessing all along. The description of forensic technology is top-notch and seems pretty authentic.
My first and foremost complaint against Autopsy is with respect to the ending. After building up the multiple threads grippingly, the author ties them up in an abrupt fashion within a couple of pages in the end. In doing so, she has also left many things unexplained, making the reader feel cheated. If the length of the book was the only constraint, she could very well have cut short the many superfluous dialogues and the unneeded sequences involving the Television news anchor, and expanded on the resolution part.
From what I could gather from the reviews of other books in the series, Autopsy may not rank as high as many of the early ones. For a first time reader, it is quite a good one for the technology part but as a well rounded mystery / thriller, it falls short, predominantly due to its abrupt ending. I would rate it a generous 3.5 stars out of 5.
My gratitude to the author and publishers of Autopsy, and NetGalley, for the e-ARC in exchange for my unbiased review.
The latest dead body that lands on Kay’s table is that of a young woman missing both her hands, who turns out to have been involved in some high level corporate espionage that may have been the cause of her death. But, while on the investigation, she also comes to know of the recent suspicious death of a young woman in a nearby area, which was hastily concluded as accidental by the previous CME. Could there be a connection between the two deaths or is Kay simply imagining things? Before she could make any headway in the cases, she has a brush with death inside the safety of her own new home. Meanwhile, her expert assistance is needed at the Whitehouse in the wake of a bizarre incident in Space that may threaten national security. On the home front, her niece-who-may-as-well-be-her-daughter Lucy is having difficulty in coping with the loss of her partner and adopted son to Covid-19 pandemic. Though the list of challenges looks formidable, Kay is quite capable of dealing with it all, and has a few solid people, like her husband Benton Weasley and her brother-in-law Pete Marino, looking out for her.
Autopsy is the first book in the series I’ve read and I could understand the secret behind its longevity: Cornwell has created a great set of characters and armed them with cutting-edge technology, be it related to forensics or to any other science, to thrill the readers time and again. Kay Scarpetta is smart, tough and overall a very likeable character, and the solid Benton comes across as a perfect partner for her. Her relationship with her brother-in-law, Pete Marino is complex and intriguing. And Lucy, with her tech-wizardry and peculiar personality, is another interesting character. Cornwell’s characterisation of other people including the tenacious Detective Blaise Fruge, Kay’s secretary Maggie Cutbush and the slimy former CME Elvin Reddy is pretty good too. The plot of Autopsy is fast paced and presents the reader with many suspects and scenarios, and it kept me guessing all along. The description of forensic technology is top-notch and seems pretty authentic.
My first and foremost complaint against Autopsy is with respect to the ending. After building up the multiple threads grippingly, the author ties them up in an abrupt fashion within a couple of pages in the end. In doing so, she has also left many things unexplained, making the reader feel cheated. If the length of the book was the only constraint, she could very well have cut short the many superfluous dialogues and the unneeded sequences involving the Television news anchor, and expanded on the resolution part.
From what I could gather from the reviews of other books in the series, Autopsy may not rank as high as many of the early ones. For a first time reader, it is quite a good one for the technology part but as a well rounded mystery / thriller, it falls short, predominantly due to its abrupt ending. I would rate it a generous 3.5 stars out of 5.
My gratitude to the author and publishers of Autopsy, and NetGalley, for the e-ARC in exchange for my unbiased review.
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