Sat 25 Jul 2020
A Mystery Review by Ray O’Leary: PATRICIA CORNWELL – Cruel and Unusual.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[5] Comments
REVIEWED BY RAY O’LEARY:
PATRICIA CORNWELL – Cruel and Unusual. Dr. Kay Scarpetta #4. Scribner’s, hardcover, 1993. Avon, paperback, 1994.
On the night Ronnie Joe Waddell is executed for Homicide, a murder similar to the one he was convicted of is committed. Medical Examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta performed the autopsies on both. A few days later, a long-time correspondent of Waddell’s is found dead, an apparent suicide, and although Waddell had been on Death Row for ten years, his fingerprints are found in her apartment. Then Kay’s computer files are broken into and one of her assistants is murdered. All three victims were shot with the same gun, but things get even more complicated when Kay finds herself under investigation for the murders.
Though I don’t think I saw it all the way through. I vaguely recall a Fu Manchu movie in which Christopher Lee was executed in the opening. Only (WARNING!) he really wasn’t you see, (END OF WARNING!) and I thought that’s where this was heading.
I was wrong.
For most of the way, I found this pretty gripping, with credible characters and nice pace. Unfortunately, Cornwell set herself a tough problem here, and her solution just wasn’t quite up to it … for me, anyway. Still, there are some nice moments before she runs off into Oliver Stone Territory.
July 25th, 2020 at 11:22 am
Dr. Scarpetta seems to have retired. The last book she was in was Chaos (2016). A run of 24 books over a span of 28 years is nothing to sneeze at, though, and many of them were bestsellers.
This does not mean that Cornwell herself has retired. Quantum, the first book in the Captain Chase series was published last year, with a second scheduled for 2021.
According to the Fantastic Fiction website, Captain Calli Chase is “a NASA pilot, quantum physicist, and cybercrime investigator.”
Worth checking out?
July 25th, 2020 at 4:27 pm
Does she have a cape and is she able to leap tall buildings also?
July 25th, 2020 at 4:30 pm
I’m hoping someone can tell us more, but you have to wonder.
July 25th, 2020 at 10:13 pm
All of the Scarpetta books and the only Chase novels I tried all went off into Oliver Stone territory as did her book on Jack the Ripper. I finally just admitted she wasn’t my taste and avoided her. Whatever her good qualities the annoying ones outweighed them for me.
July 26th, 2020 at 5:36 am
I agree with David. I read her first few Scarpetta books, but the incredibly annoying niece was only one reason I quit them. There is no way I would consider reading another one of her books.