Scarpetta (Kay Scarpetta Series #16)

by Patricia Cornwell Narrated by Kate Reading

Overview

From America's #1 bestselling crime writers comes an extraordinary #1 New York Times bestselling Kay Scarpetta novel. Leaving behind her private forensic pathology practice in Charleston, South Carolina, Kay Scarpetta accepts an assignment in New York City, where the NYPD has asked her to examine an injured man on Bellevue Hospital's psychiatric prison ward. The handcuffed and chained patient, Oscar Bane, has specifically asked for her, and when she literally has her gloved hands on him, he begins to talk-and the story he has to tell turns out to be one of the most bizarre she has ever heard. The injuries, he says, were sustained in the course of a murder . . . that he did not commit. Is Bane a criminally insane stalker who has fixed on Scarpetta? Or is his paranoid tale true, and it is he who is being spied on, followed and stalked by the actual killer? The one thing Scarpetta knows for certain is that a woman has been tortured and murdered-and more violent deaths will follow. Gradually, an inexplicable and horrifying truth emerges: Whoever is committing the crimes knows where his prey is at all times. Is it a person, a government? And what is the connection between the victims? In the days that follow, Scarpetta; her forensic psychologist husband, Benton Wesley; and her niece, Lucy, who has recently formed her own forensic computer investigation firm in New York, will undertake a harrowing chase through cyberspace and the all-too-real streets of the city-an odyssey that will take them at once to places they never knew, and much, much too close to home. Throughout, Cornwell delivers shocking twists and turns, and the kind of cutting-edge technology that only she can provide. Once again, she proves her exceptional ability to entertain and enthrall.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

At the start of bestseller Cornwell's plodding 16th thriller to feature Dr. Kay Scarpetta (after Book of the Dead), the forensic pathologist-who recently relocated to Belmont, Mass., with her forensic psychologist husband-is called to Manhattan's Bellevue Hospital for reasons that don't become clear until she gets there. Oscar Bane, who voluntarily committed himself to Bellevue while denying he brutally murdered his girlfriend, refuses to speak to anyone except the high-profile Scarpetta. Bane, Scarpetta discovers, is obsessed with her. Meanwhile, someone masquerading as Scarpetta is lurking in cyberspace and supplying an online gossip site with dirty secrets about the doctor. For help on the murder case, Scarpetta turns to her computer whiz niece and a macho former colleague whose shocking actions in Book of the Dead severely damaged his relationship with Scarpetta. With a plot full of holes and frustrating red herrings, this entry falls short of the high standard set by earlier volumes in this iconic series. (Dec.)

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Kirkus Reviews

Dr. Kay Scarpetta celebrates her 20th anniversary as a larger-than-life medical examiner by taking on a case of murder among little people. Hours after his 4'1" girlfriend Terri Bridges observes New Year's Eve by getting herself strangled, equally short Dr. Oscar Bane checks himself voluntarily into New York's Bellevue Hospital and begs to unburden himself to Scarpetta. Jaime Berger, the combative sex-crimes prosecutor in charge of the case, instantly has Scarpetta flown in from Boston. Scarpetta swiftly gets Oscar to admit that his injuries are self-inflicted, but nothing he says helps to clear up the mysteries of why Terri, a graduate student in forensic pathology, was obsessed with Scarpetta, or why the fluid sample taken from her body included the DNA of a 78-year-old paraplegic woman from Palm Beach. Stung by a series of scurrilous attacks via an online site called Gotham Gotcha, Scarpetta manfully works the case, but it's not easy to focus on the killer when there's so much bad blood among the series regulars: Berger, Scarpetta, her profiler husband Benton Wesley, her niece Lucy Farinelli and Pete Marino, the hot-headed, besotted investigator who assaulted Scarpetta the last time they worked together (Book of the Dead, 2007). Despite dozens of promising clues and reams of forensic evidence, in fact, all roads in the case lead inexorably back to Scarpetta. The title perfectly suits a challenging mystery that's only a pendant to the endless soap opera revolving around a heroine who just can't stop posing for Mt. Rushmore.

JANUARY 2009 - AudioFile

All the continuing characters in the Scarpetta series work together in New York City to solve several murders with weird pathology. Medical examiner Kay Scarpetta needs help from her husband, Benton, ex-FBI profiler; her computer geek niece, Lucy; a female prosecuting attorney; and Marino, Kay's estranged former police associate. Some of these folks, like Marino and bit players, are voiced distinctively; some, like Benton, are not. Kate Reading's talent is enlivening long (maybe overlong) conversations and injecting emotions into characters and relationships. Suspect Oscar Banes, a dwarf, is wounded in body and spirit. Mysterious Internet postings about Kay are venomous. A pathology report is read stiffly. And a celebratory lunch at Elaine's brings everyone together to close on an overall good performance. J.B.G. © AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940176701807
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	04/11/2023
Series:	Kay Scarpetta Series
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	382,763

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