Author: Patricia Cornwell Title: Flesh and Blood Genre: medical examiner mystery
It’s always something, or as Bobby Burns is supposed to have said, “The best-laid plans,etc…” Kay Scarpetta thought she was headed out of town for a well-deserved vacation, all packed and ready to go, when the call came in. A sniper had killed someone in Cambridge, a man she vaguely knew. And just like that, Scarpetta and her posse – Benton, Lucy, Marino – found themselves thrust into ever-increasing danger. The sniper’s victim was killed with a copper-jacketed bullet cunningly inscribed with a microscopic “3”… two other people had been killed with a similar MO in recent months… all three had some connection, however remote, to Scarpetta and company… someone surreptitiously left seven copper pennies (dated 1981, the year of Lucy’s birth) at the Wesley-Scarpetta manse in Boston… a
Obviously, someone was out to kill seven people, and Scarpetta immediately intuits that numbers 4-7 are supposed to be Scarpetta herself, Wesley, Lucy and Marino (though not necessarily in that order). Duh – isn’t that obvious? Apparently, the only question remaining is the “who?” and Lucy (lesbian software billionaire, chopper pilot, and galactic-class hacker) seems to already know – but she’s not telling Scarpetta (though she may have already told Benton [and maybe Marino]).
Meanwhile, Scarpetta makes tasty Italian dishes with heirloom tomatoes and fresh basil, though not a speck of Kale. And a crazy person with a computerized sniper rifle is looking over all four intended victims at any moment.
Puh-leeze…
A couple of decades ago, when Kay Scarpetta was the highest-ranked medical examiner in Virginia, she – as fictional medical examiners usually do – routinely ran into sociopaths and serial killers whom she identified through her forensic magic. Childless and unmarried, Dr. Scarpetta (she has both an MD and a JD) was surrogate mother to her incredibly precocious niece, Lucy; lover to married FBI profiler Benton Wesley; and boss of an overweight, slightly redneck investigator, Marino.
Things have changed: now Scarpetta and Wesley are married and Lucy is so rich she owns her own helicopter and a garage full of cars with six-figure price tags. All three live in the Boston metropolitan area. Marino’s no longer working for “the Doc,” but still seems to spend half his time around her. All the serial killers and sociopaths are still there, but they spend all their time trying to ruin, even kill Scarpetta and her friends and family. It’s gotten old.
Other things have also gotten old: everyone around Scarpetta fails her one way or another: too modern, too incompetent, too promiscuous, too sloppy, too gabby, too impetuous, too lusty, too indiscreet, too... No one but her three lives up to her standards – and Marino is on the bubble as often as not. Everyone is always hiding things from “the Doc.” And through it all, Scarpetta finds time to putter in her kitchen, always cobbling together fantastic, healthy Italian dishes from fresh herbs and hand-made pasta. All her possessions are of the highest quality; all her actions are perfect. She’s a goddamned superwoman – or not.
If you ask me, the only good thing the woman has done in the past ten years is to adopt the racing greyhound she calls Sock. Everything else takes place in an atmosphere of incessant squabbling among her intimates and a general attitude that no one else measures up – her four’s only equals are the villains, and the reader knows eventually Wesley will profile them, Lucy will hack them, Marino will find them, and Scarpetta will post them.