Scarpetta Hardcover – 27 November 2008

Good book

je n'ai pas pu lire ce livre écrit en anglais!!! je suis désolée, mais je ne connais que le français

I have to admit, the previous Scarpetta books were lacking. You see, Patricia Cornwell has spoiled us with her early Scarpetta works like All That Remains, that anything less is not acceptable.Her early books were the front runners for all of the forensics shows on TV now -Then things went amiss. Cornwell's characters started losing their personalities, roaming from town to town, trying to get the Virginia magic back.It got so bad that in the last book, Book of the Dead, things exploded, and Marino, who has been treated almost as a cartoon-like character, assaulted Scapetta and disappeared.So now, in this latest Cornwell book, I was hesitant to read it. But am glad I did.While it is long winded in terms of the little person who would only talk to Scarpetta, all of the characters (less Rose who passed away) return in a semblance of their former selves.Marino has lost weight and the bad attitude, and is in a program for drinking. He is still a special investigator and is on a murder case Benton and Scarpetta are on.Peace is somehow restored, and the chemistry starts again.The details of the murder, and the kind of easy to guess who done it, well, you will find it an easy and enjoyable read.Welcome back Patricia Cornwell!

Having stuck with Scarpetta through good and bad (bad = anything between Blow Fly: A Scarpetta Novel (Kay Scarpetta) and Book of the Dead) and despite having vowed not to be fooled again into buying yet another Cornwell-Hardback, I gave No. 16 in my former absolute-favorite-series a try. "Scarpetta" is certainly a step back in the right direction.Cornwell seems to want to redeem herself as well as Scarpetta and those surrounding her. It looks like she has put some effort into most of the characters & breathed life into them again. For example Marino does not seem like a stereotyped borderline-wacko anymore, but is on the way back to the character he used to be and that is really good. Scarpetta and Benton got married (finally!) and Lucy for once is not in an unhealthy relationship & does not act Rambo-like. Although she still does have problems, Scarpetta is not tangled up in a web of personal affairs that don't leave room for anything else.Even the plot is "readable". No unnecessary jump-cuts and "Scarpetta" does get nailbitingly suspenseful - eventually. All these things amount to a big improvement over the previous four books. *But* there are still several things that nag me tremendously: Cornwell's harping on how good and great Scarpetta is. There is a big, big gap between Scarpetta's qualifications as ME and the way she acts. Although she certainly is *on the way* back to her old self, she acts way too self-constrained and too saint-like. What I also find amazing (to avoid the term "unconvincing") is how everybody *always* relocates with Scarpetta. How many times has she relocated over the previous books? And everybody always relocates with her? Give me a break! I hope Cornwell lets her stay in Watertown and avoids everybody else having to relocate yet again. Most of all: there is not much happening until about the last third of "Scarpetta", although you will have probably figured out the perp way before that (even I succeeded ;-)). But then, as I have mentioned before, the action begins and leaves off to a satisfying ending with several things that seem worth to follow up upon.I am not as disappointed with this one as I was with the previous books, although "Scarpetta" is still quite far from what she used to be. But I am hopeful that the next ones will be yet a bit better. "Scarpetta" is a bit better than an average read but still south of 3.5 stars. If you are a long-time fan, you may as well give this one a try! If you are new to this series: you may not want to start with this one, but with the first book in this series Postmortem (Dr Kay Scarpetta).P.S.: Please Mrs Cornwell do us a big favor and spare us from conspiracy-theories, mind-controlling devices and terrorist/government-plots of one sort or the other in the books to come, we have had enough of that!

The book arrived promptly and was packaged ok. It is on the high end of the described "Very Good" condition! Note, it is also a large print edition, which I was not expecting.