Patricia Cornwell - Trace

[Kell]

Trace

Author: Patricia Cornwell

ISBN # 0751530778

Publisher: Time Warner

1st Published: 2004

489 pages

 

Against her own judgment and the advice of Benton Wesley and her niece, Lucy, Scarpetta agrees to return to Virginia as a consultant pathologist on a case involving the death of a fourteen-year-old girl. Accompanied by Pete Marino she finds the once familiar territory of her morgue and her department much changed, and the new Chief Medical Examiner treats her with disdain despite the obvious fact that he is in desperate need of her expertise. But professional as ever, she re-examines the evidence and proves the girl was murdered. She also finds trace evidence which matches that found on an accident victim and at the scene where one of Lucy's operatives was attacked. It is not only a forensic puzzle, but opens up the probability that someone is after those closest to Scarpetta.

 

The only Cornwell book I read prior to this one was Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper - Case Closed so Scarpetta, as a well-established character was new to me. I accepted that I wouldn

[Inanna]

Its a shame that this was your first 'Scarpetta' book as I do think its the least strong of her books, she seems to waffle on, filling spaces with mundane descriptions etc.

 

However, the storyline is actually good, and if you are ever comtemplating trying her again, 'Post Mortem' is the first in the Scarpetta series and one I would recommend

[Kell]

I think once I get through a few more of the books I have on my shlf, I might fancy trying to start at the beginning, because I can really see that ther's good scope - I just couldn't deal with not knowing anything about the characters when they'[ve developed for so long with each other - it was just too confusing trying to figure out the underlying stuff, so I was already losing the plot with the actual story. I will, however, say, I could already see parallels creeping in & I think I could see where some of the story was going in a crime-sense, just not ina character-sense. No doubt, if & when I get right back to the begninning, that'll get sorted out & I can revisit this one.

 

So in a way, I'm not really letting this book get the better of me after all - LOL!

[Guest jake]

What you have to remember too is that Portrait of a Killer is a different kettle of fish altogether, it's non-fiction. It is the one book I haven't read as I didn't really fancy it and it got bad reviews on Amazon. What did you think of it Kell?

[Kell]

Well, I'm interested in the whole Jack the Ripper thing anyway, so I've read a few bokos on the subject now & I rather liked this one. It put forward some very good arguements, but in the end, I don't think I agree that the case is closed - it wasn't quite enuogh to convince me as I've already got a whole load of other theories knocking around me head from the other bokos, so there were some points that, in my opininon, just didn't really fit into my idea of the puzzle. Because they're presented without anything to rebuff the evidence from other angles, I didn't think it was, by any means, a definitive study, but it was very enjoyable.

 

I have to say, though, that other people I've spoken to who have read other Cornwell works didn't like this one. I don't know if it's a case of "like one but not the other" but it does seem to be uniform so far - I've not spoken to anyone who liked both. It may have been that the style was so different from the likes of the Scarpetta books, or it may have been that they don't like the way she handles non-fiction.

 

Anyway, I rather liked it.