Post by Jessiealan on Jan 30, 2016 10:34:32 GMT -5
Cornwell's latest brims with head-spinning plot twists
Depraved Heart: A Scarpetta Novel," by Patricia Cornwell. William Morrow. 466 pages. $28.99.
his heart-stopping, paranoia-fueled, propulsively readable, viscerally suspenseful, disconcertingly shifty new mystery in the Kay Scarpetta series — she heads up the Cambridge Forensic Center — complete with a labyrinthine lesbian loop, bodies piling up, strange sounds, the FBI and the Cambridge police and the CIA frighteningly intertwined, and helicopters is one of the most riveting tales I’ve read in awhile.
Everybody’s under surveillance or think they are. Systems have been hacked. So when people are talking, are they playing to the cameras, speaking the truth, staging their comments or laying traps for listeners? You never know, which increases Scarpetta’s paranoia about her rich, high-tech, former FBI agent niece, Lucy Farinelli, whose Concord estate is suddenly swarming with feds. Why are they there? Nobody’s talking.
Chanel Gilbert, daughter of a Hollywood mogul, is found dead in her mansion. Did she fall off a ladder changing a light bulb? Yeah, right. Kay’s receiving three untraceable videos on her phone, shot by Carrie Grethen, Lucy’s psychopathic lover and mentor at the FBI Academy in Quantico in 1997. Is she responsible for everything, for the sounds coming from Gilbert’s basement, for strange arrows, for suddenly missing cops, for white votive candles, for a possible bomb? How does she manage to stay one step ahead of everybody else? And how much is Lucy involved?
Cornwell’s demonic plot shifts and changes almost page by page, so the reader’s spun round not knowing what to believe or follow. All happens in a single day, complete with a sudden raging thunderstorm. Does Kay’s FBI husband know more than he’s telling? What’s Lucy really hiding on her estate?
The book is an obvious sequel to "Flesh and Blood," where Kay’s rescued from being spear-gunned by Carrie, but there’s enough information for it to stand on its own. Carrie almost seems the paranoid creation of Scarpetta herself: how can a soulless villain be so all-powerful?
This intense rush of a mystery will keep you guessing up until the very scary conclusion. And even then, Carrie may still be out there, drenched in blood with more murder in mind.
Sam Coale (samcoale@cox.net) teaches American literature at Wheaton College.
www.providencejournal.com/article/20151129/ENTERTAINMENTLIFE/151129606
Depraved Heart: A Scarpetta Novel," by Patricia Cornwell. William Morrow. 466 pages. $28.99.
his heart-stopping, paranoia-fueled, propulsively readable, viscerally suspenseful, disconcertingly shifty new mystery in the Kay Scarpetta series — she heads up the Cambridge Forensic Center — complete with a labyrinthine lesbian loop, bodies piling up, strange sounds, the FBI and the Cambridge police and the CIA frighteningly intertwined, and helicopters is one of the most riveting tales I’ve read in awhile.
Everybody’s under surveillance or think they are. Systems have been hacked. So when people are talking, are they playing to the cameras, speaking the truth, staging their comments or laying traps for listeners? You never know, which increases Scarpetta’s paranoia about her rich, high-tech, former FBI agent niece, Lucy Farinelli, whose Concord estate is suddenly swarming with feds. Why are they there? Nobody’s talking.
Chanel Gilbert, daughter of a Hollywood mogul, is found dead in her mansion. Did she fall off a ladder changing a light bulb? Yeah, right. Kay’s receiving three untraceable videos on her phone, shot by Carrie Grethen, Lucy’s psychopathic lover and mentor at the FBI Academy in Quantico in 1997. Is she responsible for everything, for the sounds coming from Gilbert’s basement, for strange arrows, for suddenly missing cops, for white votive candles, for a possible bomb? How does she manage to stay one step ahead of everybody else? And how much is Lucy involved?
Cornwell’s demonic plot shifts and changes almost page by page, so the reader’s spun round not knowing what to believe or follow. All happens in a single day, complete with a sudden raging thunderstorm. Does Kay’s FBI husband know more than he’s telling? What’s Lucy really hiding on her estate?
The book is an obvious sequel to "Flesh and Blood," where Kay’s rescued from being spear-gunned by Carrie, but there’s enough information for it to stand on its own. Carrie almost seems the paranoid creation of Scarpetta herself: how can a soulless villain be so all-powerful?
This intense rush of a mystery will keep you guessing up until the very scary conclusion. And even then, Carrie may still be out there, drenched in blood with more murder in mind.
Sam Coale (samcoale@cox.net) teaches American literature at Wheaton College.
www.providencejournal.com/article/20151129/ENTERTAINMENTLIFE/151129606
Omega