Thu 21 Jan 2021
Reviewed by Barry Gardner: PATRICIA CORNWELL – From Potter’s Field.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[7] Comments
PATRICIA CORNWELL – From Potter’s Field. Kay Scarpetta #6. Scribner, hardcover, 1995. Berkley, paperback, 1996.
Cornwell is an author whose books I’ve enjoyed somewhat, but judging by her sales, not to anywhere near the extent that others have. A strong female protagonist, serial killer, and big, thick books seem to make a formula for the 80s and 90s. I guess it’d be fair to say that I think her a bit overrated.
Kay Scarpetta is chief medical examiner for the State of Virginia now, and a consultant to the FBI. As the story opens, her “routine†duties are interrupted by news of a killing in New York that is suspected to be the work of a serial killer who has eluded capture for several years now. Kay is off to New York on the next plane with her Richmond police friend who also assists on serial killer cases and the FBI agent who is also her lover. The killing is indeed the work of their quarry, and as he escalates his activities it becomes apparent that Kay herself is in some way an object of his perverse affections. Who the hunter and who the hunted, indeed.
Cornwell is a quite competent writer in terms of prose and pacing, but her prose is straightforward and not remarkable, and pacing only becomes a conscious factor when it’s lacking or faulty. Books like this stand or fall on how much you can become involved with the characters, and how much the subject matter appeals to you. Serial killers don’t, to me; my interest in psychopaths is limited. There’s little real suspense in such books, only “thrills” which don’t. Nor do I find Kay Scarpetta or many of the other characters Cornwell creates particularly appealing or interesting. Too, having a personage of Scarpetta’ s rank end up mano a mano with the killer may be de rigueur for books of this nature, but it’s still silly. My affections for Patsy and Kay remain lukewarm, I’m afraid.
January 21st, 2021 at 9:19 pm
Barry speaks for me on Cornwell as well. She’s still very popular, but her work is simply not meant for me.
January 22nd, 2021 at 9:11 am
I read the first few (maybe three), but found myself hoping her awful niece would get murdered by the serial killer (? – it’s been a while) who had her, and quickly realized (1) I hated it and (2) it was not for me.
January 22nd, 2021 at 10:35 am
May I join this “ho-hum” party?
January 22nd, 2021 at 2:16 pm
I’m sure we can fit you here in the back of the bus with the rest of us. There is a definite schism between mystery fans and mainstream mystery readers.
January 22nd, 2021 at 2:41 pm
I’m in the same boat, never was a big fan, only read one and it was enough.
January 22nd, 2021 at 8:49 pm
Back of the bus or in the same boat, it amounts to the same thing, Rick, and hey, glad you’re doing better!
January 22nd, 2021 at 9:18 pm
I was not a fan to begin with, but indifferent until her cockamanie book on Jack the Ripper in which she insisted the one man in the world who could not possibly be the Ripper, who did not fit the profile of a serial killer, and who was seen by people who knew him 500 miles away on the night of the Ripper’s worse crime at a time when traversing the English Channel and 500 miles was a virtual impossibility in a 24 hour period, was proven to be the Ripper because she said so based on the worse kind of circumstantial evidence all presented as “I’m Patricia Cornwell and I write about a forensic doctor so I know more than a hundred years worth of experts …”
Let’s just say my indifference turned into a genuine and lasting dislike.