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tehlanna's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
kathydavie's review against another edition
4.0
Nineteenth in the Kay Scarpetta suspense series revolving around a forensic pathologist and her group of friends and co-workers.
My Take
It's a fascinating uncovering of a nine-year-old murder and future terror with a very scary look inside the minds of killers. And their delight in destroying people before and after being arrested. Then there's the frame-up of Kay as this story completes what began in Port Mortuary. The betrayals certainly seem neverending.
It's interesting to read Kathleen Lawler's pathetic meanderings and her excuses for both why she has done the things she's done and how incredibly selfish she is in her justifications. Kay is a much bigger woman than I in her patience with Kathleen.
I must confess it took a good chunk of the book before I was hooked into it. Cornwell kept tossing in the teasers with twists that seemed to go nowhere. I also got rather tired of Lawler's whining and then Kay had to do her portion of whining before we finally got into the meat of it. Don't take me wrong, it was still an interesting story with all sorts of twists. If you're a conspiracy theorist, you might want to avoid this. There are some scary possibilities with the botulism bacteria used. The personal ending was a bit odd as we're sort of left wondering what will happen with Pete.
It was also somewhat irritating as Cornwell brought up the whole bit about rapists and burglars being able to sue their victims. It's pretty sad when our legal system does more to protect the criminal than it does the victim. Marino drives me rather nuts with his truth avoidance. It's kind of funny as Marino's excuses for how he set up Kay's arrival in Savannah turns out to be completely pointless.
Ooh, meow! And so true---Kay's comment to Jaime --"I'm sure you didn't ask her to hack into NYPD's computer any more than you asked me to come to Savannah."
The Story
It's Kay's white knight complex that makes her so easy to trick into traveling to Savannah, Georgia to visit with a lifelong felon, Kathleen Lawler, the counselor who molested her friend and co-worker, Jack Fielding.
Then it's little jerks on the chain that yank Kay along a predetermined path laid out by Jaime. Twitches and jolts that would have been better replaced by the truth instead of this series of betrayals. If Jaime had spent as much time figuring out how to truthfully present her argument, several people would probably have lived. Instead, she needed to control and punish to gain a revenge that was only necessary in her own mind.
It does have several positive purposes in that it frees a woman falsely accused and uncovers a vicious plot even as it rights a wrong and preserves god only knows how many future innocents.
The Characters
Dr. Kay Scarpetta is a very strong woman, a doctor with a specialty in pathology and subspecialties in forensic pathology and 3-D imaging radiology, a law degree, and a reservist rank of colonel in the Air Force, who is very conflicted in this installment. Like all of us, she is haunted by aspects of her childhood, yet she has good, supportive friends. We meet her here when she is questioning everyone around her following a traumatic event in her recent past making her vulnerable to the maneuverings of others. Bryce is her chief of staff and handles a number of personal and professional duties for her. Lucy is her niece and independently wealthy due to her own efforts. She's also a computer hacker with some wicked skills.
Benton is an FBI profiler, in fancy terms, a forensic psychologist, now married to Kay. Pete Marino is an investigator who has worked for Kay off and on since the beginning of the series. Always with conflict, switching between hating and loving her. He's never quite sure of himself.
General John Briggs is the chief of the Armed Forces Medical Examiners and Kay's friend. Jack Fielding was her number two until he finally succumbed to his personal demons. Admittedly, he had a lot of them, including the daughter he had with the woman who molested him as a child. Dawn Kincaid was a brilliant sociopath who relished the kill.
Tara Grimm is the warden where Lawler is held. Jaime Berger is/was head of the Sex Crimes Unit for the Manhattan District Attorney's office and used to be part of a couple with Kay's niece Lucy. Dan Farbman is the deputy commissioner of public information in New York City and he sounds like the kind of politican who inspires the stereotypes. Lola Daggette is on death row for the deaths of a doctor, his wife, and five-year-old twins nine years earlier. Dr. Colin Dengate is the Savannah medical examiner and a friend of Kay's. Mandy O'Toole works for Dengate. Investigator Sammy Chang is with the Savannah PD; he's in charge of several murders that occur while Kay is in the city. Roberta Price is a pharmacist who supplies the prison with the ingredients for lethal injections besides the usual prescription filling you and I might need.
The Cover
The is rather complex in its simplicity. An all white background with the author's name in raised silver, a city skyline in red-on-red tones inside the Red while Mist is a mostly solid black with a touch of a white mist beginning to rise up from the bottom of the letters even as the "s" and the "t" slide inside a spray of red that has the feel of a fingerprint in the lower right corner.
The title is a nightmare remembrance for Kay, a memory of the Red Mist of blood that sprayed across her when she encountered Dawn in her garage in Port Mortuary.
My Take
It's a fascinating uncovering of a nine-year-old murder and future terror with a very scary look inside the minds of killers. And their delight in destroying people before and after being arrested. Then there's the frame-up of Kay as this story completes what began in Port Mortuary. The betrayals certainly seem neverending.
It's interesting to read Kathleen Lawler's pathetic meanderings and her excuses for both why she has done the things she's done and how incredibly selfish she is in her justifications. Kay is a much bigger woman than I in her patience with Kathleen.
I must confess it took a good chunk of the book before I was hooked into it. Cornwell kept tossing in the teasers with twists that seemed to go nowhere. I also got rather tired of Lawler's whining and then Kay had to do her portion of whining before we finally got into the meat of it. Don't take me wrong, it was still an interesting story with all sorts of twists. If you're a conspiracy theorist, you might want to avoid this. There are some scary possibilities with the botulism bacteria used. The personal ending was a bit odd as we're sort of left wondering what will happen with Pete.
It was also somewhat irritating as Cornwell brought up the whole bit about rapists and burglars being able to sue their victims. It's pretty sad when our legal system does more to protect the criminal than it does the victim. Marino drives me rather nuts with his truth avoidance. It's kind of funny as Marino's excuses for how he set up Kay's arrival in Savannah turns out to be completely pointless.
Ooh, meow! And so true---Kay's comment to Jaime --"I'm sure you didn't ask her to hack into NYPD's computer any more than you asked me to come to Savannah."
The Story
It's Kay's white knight complex that makes her so easy to trick into traveling to Savannah, Georgia to visit with a lifelong felon, Kathleen Lawler, the counselor who molested her friend and co-worker, Jack Fielding.
Then it's little jerks on the chain that yank Kay along a predetermined path laid out by Jaime. Twitches and jolts that would have been better replaced by the truth instead of this series of betrayals. If Jaime had spent as much time figuring out how to truthfully present her argument, several people would probably have lived. Instead, she needed to control and punish to gain a revenge that was only necessary in her own mind.
It does have several positive purposes in that it frees a woman falsely accused and uncovers a vicious plot even as it rights a wrong and preserves god only knows how many future innocents.
The Characters
Dr. Kay Scarpetta is a very strong woman, a doctor with a specialty in pathology and subspecialties in forensic pathology and 3-D imaging radiology, a law degree, and a reservist rank of colonel in the Air Force, who is very conflicted in this installment. Like all of us, she is haunted by aspects of her childhood, yet she has good, supportive friends. We meet her here when she is questioning everyone around her following a traumatic event in her recent past making her vulnerable to the maneuverings of others. Bryce is her chief of staff and handles a number of personal and professional duties for her. Lucy is her niece and independently wealthy due to her own efforts. She's also a computer hacker with some wicked skills.
Benton is an FBI profiler, in fancy terms, a forensic psychologist, now married to Kay. Pete Marino is an investigator who has worked for Kay off and on since the beginning of the series. Always with conflict, switching between hating and loving her. He's never quite sure of himself.
General John Briggs is the chief of the Armed Forces Medical Examiners and Kay's friend. Jack Fielding was her number two until he finally succumbed to his personal demons. Admittedly, he had a lot of them, including the daughter he had with the woman who molested him as a child. Dawn Kincaid was a brilliant sociopath who relished the kill.
Tara Grimm is the warden where Lawler is held. Jaime Berger is/was head of the Sex Crimes Unit for the Manhattan District Attorney's office and used to be part of a couple with Kay's niece Lucy. Dan Farbman is the deputy commissioner of public information in New York City and he sounds like the kind of politican who inspires the stereotypes. Lola Daggette is on death row for the deaths of a doctor, his wife, and five-year-old twins nine years earlier. Dr. Colin Dengate is the Savannah medical examiner and a friend of Kay's. Mandy O'Toole works for Dengate. Investigator Sammy Chang is with the Savannah PD; he's in charge of several murders that occur while Kay is in the city. Roberta Price is a pharmacist who supplies the prison with the ingredients for lethal injections besides the usual prescription filling you and I might need.
The Cover
The is rather complex in its simplicity. An all white background with the author's name in raised silver, a city skyline in red-on-red tones inside the Red while Mist is a mostly solid black with a touch of a white mist beginning to rise up from the bottom of the letters even as the "s" and the "t" slide inside a spray of red that has the feel of a fingerprint in the lower right corner.
The title is a nightmare remembrance for Kay, a memory of the Red Mist of blood that sprayed across her when she encountered Dawn in her garage in Port Mortuary.
hinesight's review against another edition
2.0
Meh. The last two Cornwell books have read, to me, like a book-length exposition and a two-page denouement. This one, at least, had some action, if brief and predictable. I'm not sure why I keep reading her.
sinimini's review against another edition
informative
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
mclellan's review against another edition
3.0
I loved Cornwell's earlier
Books but have been very disappointed in the Scarpetta books the past few years. This one was much better.
Books but have been very disappointed in the Scarpetta books the past few years. This one was much better.
duygusu's review against another edition
2.0
I normally adore her books and she is one of those authors that I automatically buy her books without really seeing if others liked them or not. I like her writing style in general but I do have to say that her stories are getting increasingly unsatisfying as the years go by. In Red Mist for example, I didn't like that all the action and revelations were revealed in the last chapters. It seemed like it was all in a rush to get out. It would have been better with some development in the plot. Sometimes the plot just seems to run off in every different direction and I am left with a "what just happened" mindset. All in all, the premise is ok, the writing is ok, but it didn't leave me satisfied in the end.
gmakstutis's review against another edition
1.0
It is sad when a good character is trapped in a bad novel. Unfortunately, Kay Scarpetta has been trapped for a while. This is another in the Scarpetta series that doesn't get better. Cornwell has become formulaic and the characters have been exhausted of anything really new. Lucy remains beautiful, tough and troubled. Benton is handsome and boring. Marino, having lost weight, is now healthy and conflicted. And, Kay has just become an annoying 'know-it-all.' I'm sure die hard fans of the series will find this novel enjoyable, but I find I have no sympathy, empathy or interest in the characters anymore.
alykat_reads's review against another edition
slow-paced
1.75
A decent premise to this one, but man it started off so slow. Could have spared myself reading the previous book because it was summed up in the beginning of this one basically. Once I finally got 2/3 of the way through though I found myself more interested in what was going on. Otherwise, same old, same old. Kay has the least amount of self-awareness and criticizes others for what she does constantly.
I also really don't understand what Patricia's obsession is with making characters just terrible and then killing them off. In previous books, she basically idolized Berger as this super professional, amazing, super smart woman, and then in this one she went off the deep end and was the complete opposite right before she dies. Then ofc Kay takes it personal - 'even though I was soooo mad at her, I should have been more caring and I could have prevented her death' and then blames herself. Same thing Patricia and Kay, respectively, did with Fielding. It's a used up trope, let's move on please.
I also really don't understand what Patricia's obsession is with making characters just terrible and then killing them off. In previous books, she basically idolized Berger as this super professional, amazing, super smart woman, and then in this one she went off the deep end and was the complete opposite right before she dies. Then ofc Kay takes it personal - 'even though I was soooo mad at her, I should have been more caring and I could have prevented her death' and then blames herself. Same thing Patricia and Kay, respectively, did with Fielding. It's a used up trope, let's move on please.
bobnaidus's review against another edition
4.0
Typical Scarpetta tale, with many surprises amidst political intrigue and grotesque villains. A bit unbelievable, but never dull.
rarebird_15's review against another edition
5.0
this book was amazing! I couldn't put it down! This is the first book I've ever read in this series, but it's definitely not the last.