Rating: 
Summary: Forensic Mystery
Review: Dr Kay Scarpetta, Chief Medical Examiner of Virginia, gets involved investigating a string of murders. However, while 911 was dialled, no one came. Read it quite fast, admittedly in front of the cricket, so my concentration wasn't entirely up to standard. I've read other Scarpetta novels, but I don't remember niece Lucy being only ten years old. (B)
Rating: 
Summary: BRAVO - WELL DONE!
Review: Excellent, gripping, well written novel about a serial killer in the Richmond area and the Medical Examiner who works on the case. This, of course, is the first Kay Scarpetta novel and one of the very best.
The flaws ... well, the ending was the slightest bit anti-climatic. [In contrast, I just re-read "All that Remains" which ended more cleanly, without losing anything]. And Dr. Scarpetta's paranoia in terms of her job and her potential to be a scapegoat is not the best thread of the book. I always find her personal vulnerability to be somewhat overdone.
Of course, the best part is the actual forensics, the crime-solving, the "looking for common denominators" among the victims and the crimes. That's the great part of these Cornwell books which are a cut above most anything else.
Rating:
Summary: Great Introduction
Review: Good book! I think Cornwall does a great job with the Kay Scarpetta character. This is the first novel of this series and although I know more about the characters and their relationships from subsequent novels, I felt this was a complete introduction to Kay, and her detective side kick (although he'd hate being called that) Pete Merino, computer genius 11 year old niece, Lucy and the current romantic interest. FBI profiler, Benton Wesley is also makes his entrance. I like these people and want to ride along in Merino's dirty car, have wine and home made pasta with Kay and Lucy and listen as Wesley seems to reach out to ether to describe the "bad buy". I'll definately read more of them!
Rating: 
Summary: Great Job
Review: Great book, wonderful literary creations with wonderful attention to forensic detail. Start here don't go zig-zagging all over the serise like I did. Just a wonderful point, one problem though in spite of the wonderful building up the climax they discovered who the bad guy was too easily.
Rating:
Summary: Great Start to a Great Series
Review: I am a late-comer to this series, this first entry having been originally published in 1990. A friend of mine kept recommending Patricia Cornwell to me and I finally bought this book to start and I am glad that I did.
This is more of a police/medical procedural than a classic mystery. Dr. Kay Scarpetta is the Chief Medical Examiner in Richmond, VA and is working with the police to find a serial rapist/murderer. Along the way, her office is implicated in some leaks to the press and she must deal with her boss about that in addition to the stress of the case itself.
The action is plotted at a nice pace, some of the details are graphic (as in Kathy Reichs' series), and the ending is exciting to follow. There are not many writers today that can truly make the reader nervous and Ms. Cornwell did that for me.
Looking forward to buying and reading the next in the series soon.
Rating:
Summary: A great start of the series
Review: Postmortem is a great start to the Kay Scarpetta series. Read this and I'm sure you'll be hooked for the series. Good mystery reading and leaves you wanting more, and there is!
Rating:
Summary: A great start of the series
Review: Postmortem is a great start to the Kay Scarpetta series. Read this and I'm sure you'll be hooked for the series. Good mystery reading and leaves you wanting more, and there is!
Rating:
Summary: brilliant debut
Review: The women die on Saturday mornings. They die horrifically and seemingly randomly. They are brutalised and strangled in their bedrooms by an intruder. This is all that is known. This is how they die. When newly installed Dr Kay Scarpetta, Chief Medical Examiner of Richmond, Virginia, gets a call at just after half past two in on Saturday morning, she knows even before she answers the phone that a fourth woman has died. Though deeply distressed at the actions of this latest devious, unfathomable serial killer, all Scarpetta herself can do for the victims is to let them speak through her to help catch he who is responsible. Diligently she performs her morbid task, investigating the bodies of the fatally wronged, even though not all are pleased that she occupies this job. There's little doubt that this is one of the most successful debut novels of all time, winning a plethora of awards upon its release and still drawing people into the series even today, and I am sure it will continue to do so. It deserves too, as well. Post-mortem is a cunning, powerful, emotional and clever debut from a woman who is now the most successful (not to mention wealthy!) female crime writer in the world. With this book Cornwell pretty much created an entire new genre, and blew out the gates for a new generation of writers to follow her through. None of them are quite as good, though. None have ever matched the quality or the fascination of the so-well-described forensic detail, none have ever managed to create a more interesting and complete character than Scarpetta, who still develops to this day, thanks to Cornwell's ability to keep her series growing in different directions. They haven't always been universally popular directions, changes, but I feel they must be commended just for the fact that Cornwell has refused to write carbon-copies of this first book all through her career. God knows, she could have done, but I'm sure that lots of readers would by now be sick of them. The plotting here is slick and easy, the personal contexts and conflicts nudge the quality even higher, and the writing has autumnal beauty in it. She can also find the stark bleak poetry of a dead body. There's no doubt that Cornwell has found her unique place in the crime fiction Hall of Fame, as has Scarpetta, the most fascinating and complex female protagonist in the entire genre. Currently, it is very much in vogue to criticise Cornwell, and from what I can see this is almost solely because the most recent novels - Scarpetta or otherwise - are just different. But, whatever you think of them, Post-mortem is a brilliant forensic thriller, and it always will be.
Rating:
Summary: Incredibly Insightful
Review: This is an incredible series of books by PC. She has an uncanny knowledge of forensic science and the emotional depths we encounter along the way. Dr. Scarpetta, is a wonderfully drawn charater, it's about time we had a strong female lead who is not afraid to use her brain and be strong and still very much the feminine woman. Complimenti, for Patrica Cornwell. Auguri, Leah.
Rating:
Summary: Great forensics, great mystery, great tension
Review: This is the book that introduces us to Kay Scarpetta, Virginia's first chief medical examiner. She is a tough cookie, a woman in a "man's world" and somebody who doesn't take no for an answer. The novel gets right into the action as Kay is awakened at night with a phone call from detective Moreno. It looks like a serial killer has struck again and Moreno immediately suspects the latest victim's boyfriend. Kay, meanwhile, is desperately looking at this from the forensic angle - what are the links, what is the mysterious glitter that's showing up, what motivates this killer. Lurking in the background are the good old boys, desperate for results and desperate to pin the blame for any failures on someone. A female chief medical examiner might take the fall perhaps? Kay certainly finds that her ship is in danger of sinking - a misplaced file and her database hacked into are some of the problems showing up. Meanwhile she's not having the visit she hoped for from her niece who's bored and fed up of being ignored by her aunt, busy solving the mystery. She's a bit of a computer expert - could she have hacked in as revenge? Kay has a love interest too - in fact, one of the good old boys. But is he really on her side? Cornwell handles all of the various threads going on very well. As usual with this genre you can argue about whether the infighting is really that brutal, whether the sexism is really that ingrained. To me it doesn't matter, it doesn't dominate but it does provide additional tensions that help rather than hinder. Fans of Kathy Reichs may get a sense of deja vu. Cornwell was first, though, and at least in this book handles some of the issues better. Although both characters rather overstep the boundaries of their jobs, Kay does so less than Tempe Brennan, the heroine of Reichs' novels. If you are a fan of Reichs, I think you will enjoy Postmortem immensely. And even if you're not, you will still get plenty of pleasure from this novel!
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