Autopsy (Kay Scarpetta, #25) (2024)

2-1/2*
It has been 5 years since the last Kay Scarpetta book came out (“Chaos” – 2016).

I was hoping for something to redeem the last several Scarpetta books which were duds.
My hope was not realized.

Scarpetta is back in her old job as Chief Medical Examiner. Marino is married to her sister Dorothy. Lucy is grieving the loss of her partner Janet and adopted son. Everyone is living within shouting distance from each other. Lucy is talking to an AI computer generated Janet.🤨

Scarpetta is dealing with one murder and a very snarky secretary. Then another suspicious death comes to her attention. It was recorded as a suicide, but Kay thinks differently. Then she gets poisoned by a bottle of wine that was a gift from a foreign diplomat. Then there is a vicious murder in outer space that she is called upon to look into.

It all just gets to be too damn much. None of the scenarios are completely fleshed out or 100% properly concluded. And the ending was the biggest let down in fiction history.

The Kay Scarpetta series began in 1990 with “Postmortem” which was really quite brilliant. Having just looked back at some old reviews (not posted on GR) I can honestly say that Ms. Cornwell has not been able to recapture the magic of the very early book.

Yikes, couldn't hang. DNF. I read a third and the author had yet to endear the character to this reader. I think the author depended too much on the reader having read the previous books. I used to be a big fan of Faye in the earlier books. I picked up the first one I read, The Body Farm (5th book in the series), at the LA ABA in the form of an ARC Loved it couldn't put it down. Went back and read the first four and continued to follow the characters as they evolved. I lost interest somewhere after book eleven or so. Great series though. Highly recommend the first ten. Gave the additional stars because of great backlist. :-)

Oops, forgot to add that I won this in a Goodreads contest.

The return of Kay Scarpetta to Virginia is really good news in many ways. Reading the first part of the book felt like the early days and was a welcome change from some of the more recent series installments. Events in recent history like the pandemic and riots of 2020 were addressed in relevant and appropriate connections to Kay and company. I also really loved the ending. Why not a five-star read, you might be wondering? Well, there are a few reasons for that missing star. 1) After reading 25+ books about Kay, there are some things about her that resonate more like a squeaky wheel then endearing. 2) The trip to Washington, D.C. had so much unnecessary detail. I kept skimming and waiting to get to the point of their trip. 3) The meeting itself seemed a bit of a stretch for its connection to the current case, but was most certainly a marker of current tensions in the final frontier. 4) The conclusion and my favorite part of the book were so rushed and so much information relegated to the Epilogue. All of these are personal opinions and I am looking forward to another installment.

Thank you to William Morrow and Edelweiss+ for a DRC in exchange for an honest review.

I used to read the Kay Scarpetta novels faithfully but lost interest as I thought the writing style declined over time and felt the last one I read years ago was barely intelligible. I always enjoyed the characters, but the decline in language and grammar really turned me off.

This twenty fifth in the series sees Kay returning to her earlier professional roots and is certainly better written than the last one I read. I do like her character, as well as the supporting individuals in her life. However, there was a lot of time spent on a subplot that, while interesting, just fizzled out. Reading it, I started to wonder, “what other book have I wandered into?”. I almost felt as though it were just a page filler.

The ending seemed rushed with some actions not explained well. So much time was spent on activities not necessarily related to the story and then things were tied up very quickly. I usually have a feeling of satisfaction after finishing a book. Here, I just felt cheated.

Fans of the Scarpetta series will no doubt enjoy this read….it just left me kind of “meh”. However, it did not turn me off to Cornwell’s writing and I will certainly seeking out the next novel.

Patricia Cornwell published her last Kay Scarpetta novel, her 24th in the series – “Chaos” – back in 2016. At that time, I was ready to let Kate and her family of supporting characters ride off into the sunset because the books had gotten very formula-matic and repetitive. How many times can a villain supposedly die and then return to rage havoc on our protagonists? Also, the characters were so predictable that they had become caricatures of themselves. The time for a break felt right.

Now, five years later and a couple of other less than stellar novels, Cornwell has returned to her primary series and most popular character, Kay Scarpetta. I was curious to see how Cornwell would pick up the pieces of her most established and well-known characters. I also wanted to see if she stuck to her repetitive plotting patterns and weak endings from the last several books in her series.

“Autopsy” starts off with Kay coming full circle, returning to the position of Chief medical Examiner of the State of Virginia, where she previously served for ten years earlier in her career. Barely 30 days into the new job, she is tasked with cleaning up a failing department and dealing with an extremely bullying secretary. Kay is also trying to identify a recent murder victim, a young lady who was found naked, laying on train tracks, with her throat cut and both hands removed.

It didn’t take long to see that Cornwell kept that that prior writing strategy. The first 138 pages covers the fast-moving re-introduction of characters and the introduction of the murder mystery during the Monday evening following Thanksgiving, 2021. Kay is still Kay, with her actions being driven by others around her, especially those most close to her.

During that evening we are introduced to Kay’s overbearing British secretary, Maggie, who we want to terminate immediately. We find out Pete Marino and kay’s sister, Dorothy, have married and live in the same city. Pete still works with Lucy, Dorothy’s daughter and kay’s niece. Lucy now lives in Kay’s guesthouse, trying to emotionally recover from a devastating loss that is overwhelming her (no spoilers on this one; please read for yourself). And Benton, Kay’s husband, is still working for the U.S. Secret Service as a forensic psychologist and probably some other roles that are never fully explained. We just know that he is in the know when it comes to important things.

By the time you’ve finished page 138, you not only have been brought back up to speed with the Scooby Doo gang and everything going on in their lives, you’re knee deep into the mystery, wondering what secrets the murder victim took to her grave. Speaking of secrets, Cornwell again goes with her typical “everyone has a secret” in the family approach. Before Kay can even get confirmation of her murder victim, Marino, Lucy, and Benton are already way ahead of her, having more information and background than her. Surprise? Not at all. It’s normal for Kay to be the last one to know what’s going on. And that doesn’t even include Kay being poisoned before the night is over (that is called foreshadowing and minor spoiler alert).

As the second day develops over pages 139 through 351, more background and investigation information confirm my prior comments to be true, and expand the murder case to include national security risks that takes Kay and Benton to the White House to advise on a top-secret laboratory on a space station orbiting Earth. The stakes have definitely been upped. Is Kay and her team dealing with an international spy plot or a serial killer?

Then, as expected, the third day covers pages 352 through 390, and a wrap-it-all-up eight-page epilogue closes it out in a weak and disappointing manner that will leave many readers frustrated. I knew within the first fifty pages that the last scene would include the killer attacking Kay in her home. It was a device that Cornwell has used over and over again and the clues were so dang obvious. What was even worse that all although all of the various storylines were wrapped up in the epilogue, there were no way that any reader would have been able to connect the clues to the killer because all of the necessary information needed was not shared until those last eight pages. What a weak ending with no real payoff for the reader after investing almost 400 pages of their time. It was weak and disappointing to say the least.

I realize that I have been a bit sarcastic in my review and that is primarily driven by my personal reaction to the return of Kay Scarpetta. The question for me isn’t really whether she should come back. It’s more about whether Cornwell would create something new and refreshing, rather than rely on her plotting methodology of solving a mystery over a condensed two-to-three-day timeframe, an approach that she established and perfected, then used repetitively over and over again until it just got old. Would the readers be happy with the same old or want something new? To be fair, I can only answer that question for myself.

I think that Cornwell tried to leave Scarpetta alone for a while and try new things, which I totally respect. However, upon returning to her beloved character, I think it was too easy to fall back on her established and proven plotline methodology that was proven to be successful. And why not? That sold for her and pleased most of the fans. And having not had a Scarpetta novel in five years would more than strengthen interest in a new novel. I cannot argue with that.

However, for me, I struggled with the primary characters because they never change. They have been the same for the last umpteen books. Marino is belligerent and disrespectful of everyone he comes into contact with. Dorothy is selfish and ignorant. Lucy is brilliant, yet socially inept. Benton is handsome, quiet, and a great profiler. Kay knows her stuff, but is always challenged in her professional life, constantly having to defend her decisions. My problem is simply this. They never develop, grow, change, or evolve. And that is the case in this new book. It’s been five years and I can still tell how each of them will react and behave. They are way too predictable and obvious. I challenge anyone to name one book in the series in which other members of the family did not know more about one of Kay’s murder investigations than she did herself. There probably is one, but I cannot think of it.

I just had an aha moment. I just realized that Patricia Cornwell’s “Kay Scarpetta” series is very similar to that of Janet Evanovich’s “Stephanie Plum” series. In my opinion (and I am sure I am in the minority with this thought) both series were stellar at one point, and the best at uniquely delivering what they do best, but have now jumped the shark and are on the downswing of their respective life cycles. I know that will spark some series disagreement from other readers and I respect that.

Overall, here is my rating calculation:
Predictable and formulaic plotting – 2 stars
Addition of the creative storyline – plus 1 star
Weak and disappointing ending – minus 1 star
Overall rating – 2 stars

(This is more than the Spirit of Giving should be during the holiday season)

Autopsy wins my 2021 award for Worst Fiction by an Established Author.

This is a tragedy. This series used to be the crème de la crème of crime mystery. I used to travel non-stop for business. When a new Scarpetta came out, I was at the airport bookstore snagging one of the first copies off the rack and spent many a cross-country red-eye flight deep inside a murder. Cornwell was one of the best. Past tense. The run is over. For this reader, I'm done.

I'm not sure what Cornwell was swilling while she wrote this - maybe some poisoned wine - but this book is an abominable mess. I'm going to guess that over the 30-odd years that Scarpetta has been a character, Cornwell had sketches of ideas for her stuffed in some moth-filled trunk. She scraped the mold off and prepared them for us as a gourmet meal.

The usual characters, Marino, Lucy, Benton, et al, are written as 2-dimensional cardboard cutouts. The whole story is about Kay. It's always about Kay. It is shallow and arrogant. The plot barely hangs together, with huge holes in it. There are weird, incoherent sections, such as the spying angle and the space disaster, which could have been the focus of the entire plot but instead, Cornwell decided to spend more time moaning about an obnoxious reporter, or whining about Dorothy.

If the prior paragraph makes no sense, it's because the book makes no sense. And if you think the bulk of the work is bad, wait till you get to the end. It makes absolutely no sense and comes out of left field.

Rated 2 stars because of my personal rating system: I was fool enough to read an entire 1-star book.

p.s. Reading in Audio, the narration is nauseatingly bad. If I ever hear another book narrated by Susan Ericksen, I'm calling 911.

The Kay Scarpetta medical thriller series written by Patricia Cornwell has long been a favorite of mine. I've read all the books in order, and while some weren't fantastic, in general I highly recommend the series. It's been a while since we got an installment, as the author took a break and started a different series. I'd forgotten how fond I was until I began reading the first few chapters of Autopsy, the latest 2021 release. The best thing I can say is I found myself eager to jump back to the book throughout the last few days because it felt like returning home. So much to love, a few things that fell apart, but overall, it really makes me happy.

Tons has changed since the last book; we've fast-forwarded a bit of time. The setting couldn't be more current. With references to post-pandemic lifestyles, last year's January 6th Capitol events, and Kay's visit to the new female VP of the USA, immediately we know there's a brand new approach to the series. Not to mention that several significant personal milestones have happened for Kay, her husband Benton, her sister Dorothy, her pal Marino, and her niece Lucy. Shocking, to be honest, how much could change between two books. In some ways, it was essential. In others, it made me wish we had an in-between book that showed us how those things changed.

In terms of the primary mystery... it had great moments but it also fell apart. Started off with a bang. Dead body found. Hands missing. Hard to identify. Connected to the government in Washington DC. Ties to Russia and an elaborate scheme. Then we went down the space path. Kay was in the POTUS meeting with all the various heads to discuss possible aliens. What was happening? Then we have her conducting a virtual autopsy while someone is in space doing the actual work at her directions. I totally get the world is changing, and technology and medical science must change too. Parts were amazing. Parts were strange. Had it all come together in the end, I might've jumped up for joy and said I was just being old-fashioned.

Unfortunately, the sewing together of the final pieces was über rushed. It was always one storyline but what the space connection had to do with the dead woman's story and a previous death that no one was realized was a homicide... didn't get its solid ending. Instead, we have nothing solved and at 40 pages before the end, suddenly a stranger is breaking into Kay's house to retrieve something, and low and behold, the explanation of everything comes together. I seriously thought I was missing some chapters. And on top of that, there is no resolution to Kay's return to Virginia to lead her old office. She's stuck with a horrific boss and a nasty assistant... yet she just accepts it. I suppose it will carry into the next book, which makes good sense overall, but for a stand-alone book, there was letdown.

All that said, I love the characters and writing style. Cornwell draws you in like few others. I am balancing my love and frustration with the book and settling at 4 stars. Now give me the next one ASAP please!

Very pleased I took a chance on Autopsy given my feelings about recent novels in the series, but this one is far more in the form of classic Scarpetta - and indeed she has returned to her roots as Chief Medical Examiner in Virginia

There are plenty of forensics, a dead body, an investigation and a distinct mystery to solve. All written with a less messy style than the last few installments and a really great read.

Really enjoyed it.

Kay Scarpetta is back, after quite the overdue reprieve! Patricia Cornwell returns to the stratosphere to tantalize her longtime fans with another stunning novel in this powerful series. Scarpetta has made her way back to Virginia, hired as its Chief Medical Examiner. Working a stone’s throw from the Pentagon now in a post-pandemic world, Scarpetta will have to make the most of being new around the office once more. She’s called to the scene of a horrific murder by a set of train tracks, one that has connections to people from her past. As Scarpetta tries to piece things together from a medical standpoint, she’s joined by an old friend who is willing to turn over all the rocks for evidence that might locate the killer swiftly. All the while, Scarpetta’s appointment to the Doomsday Commission by POTUS sees them exploring a catastrophic event at a private lab in outer space. Might Scarpetta find parallels between the two cases that could make the investigations all the more troublesome? Cornwell does well as she returns to familiar ground in this superior forensic piece.

After being away for years, Dr. Kay Scarpetta has made her way back to Virginia to oversee the forensic community. Appointed to be the Chief Medical Examiner in an office rife with corruption and sloppy documentation, Scarpetta must try to make all the difference, while being seen as the new girl in town. Still, she’s ready to do her best and has the support of her husband, Bentley Wesley. Together, they live and work only miles from the Pentagon, which has its own ominous feel to it, especially in a still-pandemic world.

Only a few works on the job, Scarpetta is called to the scene of a gruesome find, where a young woman’s body is found close to the railroad tracks, her neck slit and body left to rot. Scarpetta cannot deny the graphic nature of the body dump and can only wonder if there is more to it than a single killing, particularly when a unique item is found on the tracks. After she learns the identity of the young woman, a scientist working on some cutting age technology, Scarpetta learns that her old friend and brother-in-law, Pete Marino, lived next door and knew her well.

After hiring Marino as an investigator with the Examiner’s Office, they begin peeling back all the evidence to see if there’s any way to wrap the case up with ease. Something is not adding up, but there is more to the story than meets the eye, which Scarpetta cannot shake. Her investigation takes on new importance when she suffers her own medical event, after being poisoned by a gifted bottle of wine from someone of great importance in the international policing community.

While work has not let up, Scarpetta must attend to her own major job that brought her back to Virginia, as a member of the President’s Doomsday Commission, which handles major events. When a private lab in outer space suffers what appears to be a major disaster, Scarpetta helps to decipher that the original ‘meteor shower’ hypothesis might not be what killed two scientists, but rather someone who wanted vindication for an old sleight. All this might also have something to do with the body Scarpetta has in the cooler, as it sheds new light on how the cases might be linked. All the while, a serial killer lurks in the shadows and Scarpetta’s intuitiveness could be one reason to remove her from the equation. Cornwell is back to her old self and stunning readers with another great piece, with two feet firmly on the ground.

While I have followed this series for many years, I always thought that Patricia Cornwell had a wonderful handle on things, particularly with her ever-evolving protagonist. However, as the books picked up, Dr. Kay Scarpetta began to lose her lustre and I wondered if it was time to turn towards retirement. Cornwell did shelve Dr. Kay for a bit, but brought her back in this novel, newly minted and ready to take on the world. Things are much crisper and the narrative flows smoothly once again, allowing series fans to feel a sense of confidence in Cornwell once more. I was leery about how things would go with this book, but am confident that there is new life in the series and Dr. Kay Scarpetta once more. Now to see if this was a one-off or return to series writing.

Dr. Kay Scarpetta is back and ready to work hard. Series fans will be familiar with many of her nuances, some of which are back front and centre. Others will find the new Scarpetta fresh and hungering for order once again. With some of her new responsibilities, she keeps her plate full, especially with the work involving the White House. I can only hope that there will be more exploration of this key aspect in her work, which remains up in the air. Scarpetta has made some great friendships and I am eager to see them renewed, with added strength, once more.

Very few series I have read can last as long as this one and still have the needed momentum to keep readers interested. Patricia Cornwell had her slip, but I feel that she’s righted herself once more, recreating the greatness that was Dr. Scarpetta. With a well-developed narrative and strong story, Cornwell treats readers to a piece on par with some of the early works of the formidable medical examiner. Things build, as the reader gets reacquainted with Scarpetta and new (returning) characters make their mark. A few key plot twists provide some thrilling action and leave the reader unsure where things might go, but alway hoping for the trademark spice and smarmy nature that Scarpetta can bring to a story. I was pleased to see Cornwell returning to her roots, leaving space exploration for another author, and can only hope that murder trumps what she’s been putting out over the past few years. Bring on more Kay Scarpetta and refine this series!

Kudos, Madam Cornwell, for returning to what many feel is your greatest work. I am a dedicated fan, but really feel Scarpetta is where you belong.

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Chief Medical Examiner Dr Kay Scarpetta returns to Virginia where these books first started many, many years ago. She's surrounded by all of her family - familiar characters for those of us who have been reading this series since the beginning.

Starting out, a murdered woman is in her morgue cooler. The unknown woman had her throat cut down to the spine and hands severed. Sounds violently personal and Scarpetta is determined to get justice for the victim.

As another story line, Scarpetta and husband Benton Wesley are called to a meeting with the president and his top staff at the White House due to murders in space.

I've been waiting nearly five years for this Scarpetta book while Cornwell has been pursuing other characters that I don't like in other series. The Scarpetta series was one of the first I became addicted to when I switched from romance to mysteries about 30 years ago. This book is written in typical Cornwell style and the forensics are excellent. I would not advise anyone to begin the series with this book. Start at the beginning.

Cornwell has created an imaginative crime scene in outer space that has to be investigated remotely. Scarpetta did a great job.

I liked the older books in this series better where Scarpetta was more heavily involved in the autopsies and the crime scenes, although some of this is in this one. I thought Cornwell hit a slump in her books several years ago and I'm glad to see her getting her groove back.

When ace Medical Examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta is at her best - using evidence to determine all manner of dead body things like what caused the demise and not spending page after page feeling that she's being put upon - she's hard to beat. And in this book - the 25th in the popular series - I'd say she's there. No, her paranoia hasn't disappeared, but it's noticeably less obtrusive, allowing me, at least, to fully appreciate her skills. And here, she's taken on a new job that's brought her sort of full circle: The forensic pathologist has returned to Virginia as chief medical examiner.

She and her husband, Forensic Psychologist Benton Wesley, have moved to Old Town Alexandria amid political turmoil, some of which can be attributed to fallout from the recent pandemic. Living in a guest house is Scarpetta's technologically gifted niece, Lucy, and nearby neighbors are longtime friend and investigator Pete Marino and his wife, Dorothy (Kay's far-from-beloved sister Dorothy, also loosely defined as Lucy's mother).

It all sounds quite civilized; but Scarpetta's office is quite another story. Amid her regular responsibilities, she's expected to do clean-up duties resulting from some 20 years of mismanagement (or worse). Giving her grief every step of the way is her secretary Maggie, who was a devoted assistant to Scarpetta's incompetent predecessor and seems intent on making trouble for her new boss (making Scarpetta's paranoia totally justified in this instance). No reason was given, so I'll assume the woman can't be fired because she's a government employee; otherwise, I can say for sure she'd have been sent packing after my first day in office - and I have to believe Scarpetta would have done the same.

Soon after Scarpetta takes over and is getting to know her co-workers, she's called to take a look at what appears to be a rather gruesomely murdered woman lying near railroad tracks. That, in turn, raises suspicion of connections to a previous crime. And in the midst of all this, she gets a nasty surprise that temporarily sidelines her, after which she and Wesley get summoned to the White House (she's been appointed to a highly classified national Doomsday Commission). There they learn of possible murders aboard a secret laboratory that's orbiting Earth. Back at home and work in Virginia, the focus turns to the local murder or murders and trying to find out who is behind the aforementioned surprise before he or she strikes again (and worse, is successful).

For me, this one was a better balance of characters, with a fair amount of interaction with Wesley (quite an impressive guy in his own right), some with Marino and less on her sister and niece (a plus in my book because I've never been fond of either one, although I did work up some sympathy for her niece and what she's been through of late). My only disappointment came at the end, when things seemed wrapped up far too quickly for my liking. On the other hand, I suspect some of it will carry over to the next edition. Overall, a well done story that I always hated to put down - a big thank you to the publisher, via NetGalley, for allowing me to read and review a pre-release copy.

Many many moons ago I read the first 3 books in this series as they were released. My wife is a huge fan so thats where I picked up the early books.

Having not read any of the series since then, I was a little apprehensive going into book 25! Some of the later books got mixed reviews and I was worried the series may well have ran it course by now. My fears however were unfounded.

Kay has returned to Virginia to take up the role of chief medical examiner. As the new girl in a system that has been run into the ground by her predecessor, she has a lot to fix but also faces a lot of resistance, not least from her secretary, who is loyal to a tee to her old boss.

Soon she finds herself called to a murder scene near a railroad track. A young woman has had her throat cut, her head nearly decapitated.
We are led into a world of corruption, big pharma, the White House and even outer space!(I kid you not.)

I thoroughly enjoyed this one. Kay is a fantastic central character. Quietly determined but hugely reserved, she has a lot more self control and patience than I would have with some of the characters.

The story moves along at its own pace throughout. Its fairly evenly paced and takes its time which the book is all the better for. Its a mixture of the investigation and also the professional and personal relationships Kay has. I was engrossed in the world created by Patricia Cornwell and felt totally satisfied by the end.

Thanks to the publisher for the ARC through Netgalley.

I haven't read a Kay Scarpetta book in many years, and the feeling I had gotten after reading the reviews for her last couple of books made me question reading this one. However, I'm glad I did.

As you will notice from the Amazon recap and the publishers' website, this is a relaunch of the series. (Quoted from Amazon) "In this relaunch of the electrifying, landmark #1 bestselling thriller series, chief medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta hunts those responsible for two wildly divergent and chilling murders."

I can certainly see why they are calling this book a relaunch. The old Kay is back right along with most of her other beloved characters. It has been 5 years since her last book in this series, and this novel shows that jump quite well. We are still in the middle of the Covid pandemic; though the political parties aren't named, we see the ravages of current politics in this novel.

There are enough twists and turns to keep any mystery lover happy, a lot of inner angsting that will make most readers unhappy (although some of the best dialogue comes about in this manner), enough red herrings to keep you on your toes and for the pièce de résistance, we even have an encounter in space that needs Kays special talents!

My one problem, and I'm not sure if she had done this in her previous novels, is that Ms. Cornwell gives the ending short shrift. Although this could be considered a mini-cliff hanger, we shall see.

I'm already ready for the next book and I am going to go read the entire series even if the tech in some of them is dated!

*ARC is supplied by the publisher William Morrow, the author, and NetGalley. Many thanks.

This was so irritable 😠 every single character was over-dramatized and perplexingly dense. I don't know if the point was to flood this story with unlikeable characters - if so, then high marks for that.

Alas, due to my brain feeling like I was stuck in a room full of preschoolers who were all forced to miss nap time, I couldn't even focus enough on the case because all "facts" about it came directly from one of the said IRRITATING characters.

I’ve missed the last few of these because the series was going so downhill. Saw this cheap and thought why not…. It wasn’t even worth the cheap price. Long… lots of rambling descriptions of buildings and unneeded crap, very little action.

I was once a huge fan of Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta series and somewhere along the way I stopped reading them. I eagerly picked up her newest, AUTOPSY, hoping for a great book to catch up on the characters, which I did. The plot itself is fascinating and well worth reading. But Cornwell ended the book suddenly and with little to no real explanation. I almost thought it was a 2-part story, since the page count was nearing an end and the story was so far from a conclusion. There are still many loose ends and I have a feeling of frustration; that I invested in a tale that did not end. Cornwell is a better author than this book would suggest. I received my copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

• There’s way to much superfluous detail on every page.
• Backstories that go nowhere.
• A major disconnect in the plot line.
• Very little action, however lots of redundancy.
• This covers 90% of what’s supposed to be a mystery thriller.
• Every character will irritate the Hell out of you.

The last 10% bullet points the unraveled mystery by way of convenience. It wraps up so quickly you’ll wonder why you wasted all your time on everything else.

I was the biggest fan of Scarpetta. Not anymore.

Decent but not spectacular, as shown by it taking me 2 months to finish! I had forgotten about it completely. Hardcore Cornwell fans should still enjoy this but there was nothing original about it. 3 mediocre ⭐️s

From the Greek autopsia: to see for oneself.

Just when we thought the series was over, Patricia Cornwell delivers one of the best installments. Welcome Back Kay Scarpetta! Book #25 is a winner.

Autopsy is a timely story with a near current setting touching on COVID-19, the 2020 pandemic, Black Lives Matter, removal of confederate monuments and January 2021 Capitol riot in Washington, DC.

It is easy to see a connection to another Cornwell series (Captain Chase) Quantum, Spin, with NASA and SpaceX involved.

Favorite Passages:

He doesn't like the morgue, especially after hours. A lot of people don't, and it's always struck me as silly, because it's not the dead who will hurt you.
______

The beige epoxy-painted floor is still wet from being hosed down, my boots making a quiet sticky sound. Zippy up my coat and pulling up my hood, I open the pedestrian door leading outside, startled by the guttural rumble of a turbo-charged engine idling in the volatile dark.
______

"You gonna tell me the details so I know what we're dealing with?"
"You know I can't."
"You can do what you want, Doc."
"Not without consequences."
"You're the chief medical examiner of the entire Commonwealth," he says. "Just like the old days. It's up to you."
He's right but not without a few rules and conditions.
______

It's very likely that Lucy would have settled into this same development had there been anything else available at the time. Thank God there wasn't.
______

The last thing I'm interested in at the moment is strolling down her morbid memory lane.
______

Old trees are winter-bare, their branches rocking in the blustery night. Wavering gaslight barely pushes back the darkness as we follow the cobblestone driveway past Lucy's detached cottage.
______

If you ask my sister, I'm the boringly responsible one, all business, no play or sense of fun. In other words, "dull with an air of the inevitable" as if I wear "a dream coat woven on the loom of tragedy," my sister's words not mine.
______

"I hope I'm not turning into a Luddite but I find what you're saying deeply disturbing," I reply, imagining people downloading an app on their phone so they can commune with cyber ghosts.
I have no doubt, the temptation will be overwhelming to conjure up family, friends, enemies, world leaders and celebrities alive and dead, including those you have no connection to, and possibly haven't met. What an embarrassment of riches for stalkers, for anyone obsessed.
"I don't know what's going to happen as technology makes us increasingly detached from others," I explain. "How dangerous if we can't tell what's real from what isn't. What do we trust?"
"Since social media and the pandemic we've already become like that," Lucy says. "And it depends on your definition of real. Because once you get used to a tool like this, it's as real as anything gets. But forget privacy anymore. There's so much out there, you don't need to hack. Although we can."
"We?" I ask pointedly, and I know she mean Janet.
"This is the way everything is going." Lucy gets up from her desk. "There's no choice, and no going back."
It will become commonplace to continue relationships in cyberspace, she says, as if there can be no question. Life's disconnects and disappointments will be remedied in ways never believed possible, what's unbearable becoming a matter of perception and re-creations, the undoable undone.
There will be fixes and patches for ruptures of all descriptions including illness, divorce, disability, bad choices and behavior, ruined opportunities, and most of all death. As miraculous and marvelous as such a renaissance may seem, it's equally sinister if exploited by the human malware among us."
______

"A lot of people end up dying the way they lived." My niece repeats what I've been saying since the beginning of my career.
______

"It sounds like she lived beyond her means, and nothing was enough," Lucy summarizes as we follow the walkway to the front porch. "Talented and smart, she was greedy, relentlessly ambitious and lacking in integrity, and that's a bad combo. Accumulating a lot of debt, she made herself vulnerable to selling her soul to the devil."
______

Thunder cracks like shotgun blasts, and the moaning wind sounds wounded. Rain beats the roof like angry sticks, splashing and thrashing this place I'm in.
Faster . . . slower . . . harder . . . softer . . . The digital time flares a hellish red in the dark . . .
. . . 8:37 . . .
. . . 8:38 . . .
Minutes twitch past blearily. I don't know where I am. Is it Spring or Summer? Winter or Fall?
Why do I feel half dead?
As if I've been struck by a truck. How can I see when my eyes are shut?
. . . 8:40 . . .
. . . 8:41 . . .
What have I done?
. . . 8:42 . . .
. . . 8:43 . . .
What's happened to me?
And the clock hovers eerily. Threateningly. Screaming like a Stryker saw grinding through a skull. Water drums into metal sinks, a stretcher dripping blood on tile. Hot bony dust is in the air, the stench of death everywhere. I taste it, smell it . . .
______

The color of the water this morning is the gray-green of old glass. Protruding from it is a stubble of dark wooden pilings left from the dock that was there centuries earlier. I imagine the sea captain who built our house watching his moored ship from this very spot.
______

Maybe I don't want to face that each day the road behind me gets longer than the one ahead, and there's no reversing the trajectory.
______

"I don't need to tell you the implications for the military, for space travel, for the health of world leaders, for humanity overall."
______

I find his predicament Shakespearean, maybe worthy of Edgar Allan Poe if not downright biblical.
______

The job is made all the more difficult by microgravity, people alive and dead ducking, dodging, knocking into each other or the walls, the floor, the ceiling.
Such a grotesque dance, and afterward the unprecedented inevitability . . .
______

We're stuck midway across the George Mason Memorial Bridge spanning a half-mile stretch of the Potomac River. The four southbound lanes are a parking lot, the sun smoldering like molten lava, spreading electric orange and pink hues along the horizon. The waning light is reflected on the water, flickering in the lazy current.
At least we have a view. I don't know that I've ever seen a more dramatic sunset.
______

I look out at night falling fast like a dark curtain dropping, counting four helicopters not in high hovers on the other side of the water.
______

The fleeting scent of space clings to the suits for a while, and astronauts describe it differently. Some say it's a burnt metallic odor. Others are reminded of ozone or something electrical.
______

"I'm ready and waiting if anything good comes in," he adds, and nothing coming into this place is ever good.
______

The past is past but never gone, and it's a sad fact that women don't always get along with each other. Some are too territorial and competitive, answering only to a man, creating the very toxic environment I've inherited.
______

"It will never end," Marino says. "But you ask me, it's stupid. You can't erase history."
"You also can't rewrite it," Lucy says from the right seat where she's pilot in command, and I can see only the top of her head. "They shouldn't have built the monuments to begin with."
______

Now here we go again, and there will always be those in charge who hire me to find out the truth as long it's the truth they want. I've about had enough of it. I'm trying hard to keep a lid on rage fueled by old setups and slights, and I can't promise I'm going to be on my best behavior today.
______

". . . Mom's nervous, and nothing better for home protection than a shotgun."
"That's a scary thought."

3.5 Stars

Kay Scarpetta is back in Virginia as Chief Medica Examiner in her old stomping grounds and I like the return to her roots. However, she’s left with a mess of an office with much of the staff still loyal to the previous Chief, Elvin Reddy, a slimy ladder climber, from Kay’s past. The office secretary, Maggie, undermines Kay’s every move, and seems to be plotting against her at every turn. It doesn’t help that Kay re-opens a past case that was categorized as an accidental death when details point to it being connected with a new murder. Adding to an already busy caseload is an investigation into the deaths of two astronauts in an outer space lab. A lot going on here.

It’s been years since I picked up a Kay Scarpetta novel, but the series was a favorite long before Goodreads, so I was excited to hear there’d be a new Scarpetta novel. I really enjoyed catching up with an old favorite character, seeing her happy with Benton and all the gang back together again. Didn’t know that Marino married Kay’s sister. Not sure if that happened in one of the books I missed, but I was a bit surprised. I foresee a bumpy road there. Lucy’s had some sad blows personally, but professionally she’s doing well. Covid is part of the story as well, not that it’s a central focus, just that the characters are dealing with the pandemic like we all are in real life.

Got to the end and I thought maybe the story would be continued in another book because so many things were still up in the air. The overall plot threads were wrapped up (mostly) in the epilogue and it felt abrupt. The solution came out of nowhere with no breadcrumbs or foundation, IMO, and I think that’s the part that was most disappointing. I didn’t feel part of the process. Up until then, Autopsy was a solid 4 stars for me. I did feel like it set up for future books and I’m looking forward to Kay bringing the Medical Examiner’s office back into shape, helping bring criminals to justice.

A copy was kindly provided by William Morrow in exchange for an honest review.

Dr. Kay Scarpetta is back as the Chief Medical Examiner of Virginia, and she walks into a political minefield at the office due to her predecessor, Dr. Elvin Reddy. Coupled with that a dead body turns up beside the railway track on Daingerfield Island, set up as a display with her hands chopped off. It turns out to be that of Gwen Hainey, a biomedical engineer working with Thor Industries. In a parallel development, Dr. Scarpetta is called into the White House situation room to oversee and guide two astronauts from the ISS to perform an impromptu autopsy on two dead astronauts killed on board a Thor Industries satellite.

Deciphering a connection between the two incidents, one on earth and the other in outer space is going to need all the expertise of Dr. Scarpetta and her team. Will they be able to get to the bottom of this mystery?

Please read my detailed review from the link below:

https://www.aniblogshere.com/books-re...

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Patricia Cornwell has lost her mind. This book reveals a lazy author who seems to be resting on her laurels, hoping her devoted fans will fork over their hard earned money to read her latest novel.

The writing is horrible. The characters are shallow and the plot wanders all over hell's half acre. Nonetheless, Cornwell plows through this mess for 398 pages. At the point, it seems to have occurred to the author that it's time to wrap up this mess (which she fails to do convincingly), which she does in an "Epilogue" that ties up all the disparate loose ends, and pins the murder of Gwen on a character that never appears in the book until page 389 and isn't named until page 391.

Other than an expectation of a best seller and the resulting proceeds, it's hard to understand why her editor and publisher permitted this mess to be published. As for me, I'm done with Cornwell. As for the rest of her fans and her next book, should she decide to write one, caveat emptor!

(3.5 rounded up )
I am a big Scarpetta fan. I have read other stories by Patricia Cornwell. In fact, this is novel #29~ true 24 were Scarpetta!
I read Chaos Kay Scarpetta #24 January 4, 2017 Yep it has been five years since the last book in this series.
Needless to say, as a Scarpetta fan, I am delighted that not only has Kay returned but Lucy and Marino are back as well.
•Kay has a new job in Alexandria, Virginia as ‘chef medical examiner’.
•Marino has retired and married Kay’s sister Dorothy.
•Lucy is grieving the death of her parent Janet and adopted son. In fact, Lucy has created an Ai of Janet and communicates with her.

There are several stories going on.
Story starts when Marino’s neighbor is found dead in what seems to be a suicide but we soon believe she was murdered by a serial killer!
Then Kay is poisoned!
I wasn’t sure if they are connected but sure had my interest
Then . . . . .
Kay’s husband Benton Wesley now a forensic psychologist with the U.S. Secret Service as well as Kay are summoned by the President to attended the highly classified “Doomsday Commission” meeting in the White House Situation Room.

As we hear what is going on my first thought was hmm didn’t something similar happen in Andy Weir’s The Martian? (Note: No one was left on Mars to grow potatoes!)

I love these characters but I was a tad disappointed especially with the narrator Susan Erickson ~ she seemed so angry. She did a great job performing the male character but I wasn’t happy with her performance of Kay or the other females.

Well I read Kay Scarpetta #26 ~ You betcha!

Lo so, è una compulsione+dipendenza , e so anche che alla fine della lettura mi dirò “giuro, questo è l’ultimo che leggo”, ma so anche che non sarà vero, e il prossimo che uscirà resisterò giusto qualche giorno dicendomi “lascia perdere, farà schifo come tutti i precedenti, non vale la pena, sono tirati via” e poi soccomberò e passerò due giorni di lettura frenetica, e alla fine sarò schifata. Insomma, il loop classico degli ultimi 14-15 volumi di Scarpetta.
Sì, perché dopo un inizio folgorante con Post mortem, e un altalenante qualità della prima dozzina, Cornwell ha continuato a rimasticare la stessa trama assurda per i successivi (e sì, li ho letti tutti e 25), con una unica costante, il finale tirato via a livelli assurdi.
Autopsia non fa eccezione: Kay torna a Richmond a fare il medico legale e porta con sé tutta la family (ma perché? La risposta è in una serie di uccisioni letterarie di cui non si capisce assolutamente la necessità: Janet e Desi muoiono a Londra causa covid, muore anche Dorothy-madre, mentre Dorothy-sorella sposa Marino. Si, esatto, sposa Marino). Ovviamente è tutto un disastro, il predecessore era un politico e non un tecnico. C’è una morta ammazzata a cui hanno amputato le mani, piove sempre, c’è una detective nuova che sembra una impicciona ma invece è brava.
Patty mette in piedi il solito universo di possibilità, complotti mondiali ( qui si raggiungono vertici di sospensione della ragione: c’è una riunione alla Casa Bianca, dove si adombra nell’ordine: un attacco alieno – for real - , un complotto sovietico, uno spionaggio di big pharma (stampa 3d di organi umani), altre amenità. Ma soprattutto, c’è l’autopsia del titolo: Scarpy fa una autopsia da remoto in una stazione spaziale mentre i corpi fluttuano, il sangue si polverizza etc etc etc ), serial killer improbabili, che si risolvono sempre nello stesso modo: due scarne paginette con il nulla cosmico.
Ad aggravare il tutto c’è una sottotrama che per un po’ prende l’attenzione: il tentato avvelenamento di Kay allora, c’è un bottiglia di un vino costosissimo che le ha regalato il capo dell’interpol, Kay beve un sorso e stramazza, le fanno due dosi di narcan e si ripiglia bella come un fiore, senza neanche passare dal pronto soccorso. Sembra che trovare il colpevole sia il centro di tutta la faccenda, e invece era un viticoltore francese. MA SUL SERIO?????? ) che si risolve nel modo più ridicolo (mai come quando spararono a Benton nell’ultima pagina tipo del 18°?, non mi ricordo, e invece aveva il giubbotto antiproiettile, assurdo).
Infine, Lucy è andata completamente fuori di testa, ma anche qui, Patty si stufa presto: prima le fa creare l’avatar di Janet poi la abbandona a se stessa.
Insomma, la solita Scarpettata. Vabbé tanto lo so che leggerò anche il 26° se ci sarà (e due stelle e non una perché comunque quando lo inizio non riesco a smettere fino a quando non arrivo in fondo).

Though I found this a better installment than the last I still had my fair share of problems with this book.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Let’s talk Maggie. Why was she still her assistant? She did and said things that were beyond insubordination. I get it’s government but if Kaye could so easily be bogusly fired there was more than sufficient evidence for Maggie to be. For her to be kept on is a lame author plot device for drama.

Marino- when did he marry Kaye’s sister. I know it’s been more than 4 years since the last installment but I’m sure that’s a detail I would have remembered. I check my review for the last book and it’s not mentioned.

I read a lot of crime/mystery novels. It’s a favorite genre. And it feels like Kaye oversteps her role a lot. Without Mario being an investigator why would Kaye be the one to solve cases that aren’t solved by evidence directly dealing with the body. If a penny was found in the body, I get why Kaye would be looking for more. Since it wasn’t, that wasn’t her role to be looking for them. That would be the investigating officer. I get it makes for a compelling story, but not a realistic one.

I also don’t understand why her boss is still her boss. He clearly f’d up the murder investigation and Kaye says nothing, does nothing, so he can continue f’ing up but she’ll act like an investigator when she’s a medical examiner. Her boss is a bad guy too who needs to be stopped.

But my biggest complaint is how the ending was very much rush and the loose ends somewhat tied up in an epilogue.

Again better than the last.

Let’s talk narration which was great.

I stopped reading more or less in the middle of one of the useless and very long descriptions of useless reunions or Dr. Scarpetta's rituals of dressing or cooking or arguing with Benton or Marino or Lucy (who knows if the book would have benefited more from her death than ****).
It's probably better to remember the first books, when Cornwell was able to structure a narrative ARC that didn't get lost in useless details or terrible boredom.

Ho smesso di leggere piú o meno a metá di una delle inutili e lunghissime descrizioni di inutili riuonini o dei rituali della dottoressa Scarpetta per vestirsi o cucinare o discutere con Benton o Marino o Lucy (chissá se il libro avrebbe giovato di piú dalla sua morte piuttosto che quella di ****).
Probabilmente é meglio ricordare i primi libri, quando la Cornwell era in grado di strutturare un ARC narrativa che non si perdesse in inutili dettagli o nella noia terribile.

I received from the Publisher a complimentary digital advanced review copy of the book in exchange for a honest review.

My last Scarpetta…

Kay Scarpetta has returned to where she started out all those long years ago, to be Chief Medical Examiner in Virginia. The location means she’ll be handy for her other job, as advisor on the POTUS’ Doomsday committee. She is investigating the brutal murder of a woman when she receives a call informing her she’s needed in the Situation Room. There’s been an incident in a space station and two astronauts have died, the third escaping in the shuttle back to land in Russian-controlled territory.

This, I’m afraid, is a bit of a mess. Cornwell has thrown everything into it – serial killers, cutting edge technology that feels more like science fiction, politics, international skulduggery, poisoning by mystery drugs, personal problems, staffing problems, hints at corruption, etc., etc. Every topic is treated with total superficiality and it’s hard to see exactly what the connecting story is supposed to be. There are hints that somehow the woman’s murder and the space deaths may be connected, which, if true, really is a coincidence too far.

The real problem is that the story doesn’t fill the pages. All these strands are started off, and then nothing happens to move them forward until they are all resolved in a tacked-on climax which of course involves the usual peril to Scarpetta and her family. How many close shaves can these people endure? They’d be safer in a war zone than in government employment in America, apparently. Instead of plot momentum, the pages are filled with pointless detail. Scarpetta cannot walk down a corridor without us being told what colour the carpet is, what the doors are made of, what pictures hang on the wall, how loud or soft her footsteps sound, whether she’s carrying her scene case or rolling it. It can take a page to get from the entrance of a building to the elevator, and the poor reader soon learns to know that there will be another corridor to be described when Scarpetta reaches the desired floor. I don’t need to know that a basin is marble, that a car is a Tesla, that Scarpetta puts gel in her hair in the morning. Not every noun requires an adjective. And I do not need or want to know the make and qualities of every gun every gun-obsessed American owns.

Scarpetta herself is so tedious and self-important and this is not helped by the book being in the always annoying first-person present tense. Everyone is incompetent except for her and her immediate family and inner circle (and frankly even several of them are a bit on the crazy side). Virginia has collapsed into a morass of incompetence and corruption since she left, and she knows she’s been given the job because she’s the only one – the only person in the whole wide world and space above – who’s capable of running the department efficiently. What qualifies her to advise the space programme? Do NASA and the US military have no medics, no scientists, no procedures, no contingency planning? What would happen to America if she died? Would it simply collapse, unable to carry out any function without her?

I stuck it out for over two-thirds and was determined to finish, but it broke me. I couldn’t take one more paragraph of Scarpetta complaining about her secretary, her predecessor, her colleagues, her sister. I couldn’t take one more page of unnecessary description. I couldn’t bear to wait any longer to see if any of the story strands would ever move forward. So I skipped to the end and discovered the dénouement was even worse than I feared. My last Scarpetta. My last Cornwell.

NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, HarperCollins.

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It's the best Scarpetta novel she's put out in years. However, the "magic formula" isn't quite so magical any more. Scarpetta returns to VA, back to being the victim of a misogynist, back to being the victim of untrustworthy staff, back to having multiple staff members who are borderline incompetent. Leaving Scarpetta paranoid and constantly apologizing to all her family & friends. Marino is once again having women problems (restless), because he's still hung up on Scarpetta. Lucy is alone, isolating with her computer, and angry to the point that violence is her only release. Benton, the "greatest FBI profiler in the history of profilers" continues to idolize and put Scarpetta on a pedestal; treating her as the most perfect woman in the world whose bad behaviors he will chronically excuse. It's become so redundant it's laughable.
The mystery/crimes are intriguing, but not developed enough (like they would have been in old-school Scarpetta novels). Cornwell adds almost every hot-button topic into the storyline, strictly as filler: the pandemic, the space program, the new computer sciences that seem more science fiction than fact. The final insult is that the crimes are solved within the last 5 pages of the book (with all the typical excuses for criminal behavior - bad childhood, molestation, etc) with zero explanation as to why the killer would focus on Scarpetta. It's sad to say, but I think it's time for Scarpetta to retire.

*big spoiler alert*
A welcome return to form after the last few disappointing Scarpetta adventures I felt, as in the characters we care about are back in fairly rounded form. Some events dragged for me - that Whitehouse meeting about half way through seemed interminable, though more interesting once they got into the meat of the matter, as it were - but I mostly enjoyed it.
Except for the ending.
It doesn't sit well with me (though your mileage may vary of course) when the murderer turns out to be someone whose name has not even been mentioned throughout the entire book until the epilogue, almost as an afterthought. I like to think that they've been 'hiding in plain sight' so that I had a chance of identifying them. None of that here. Most unsatisfying.

What an absolute disappointment. Lists of things suffered during pandemic. It is very evident that the same can be said about Patricia Cornwell’s writing. Why bring back such a beloved character in such a mediocre book? So much of it was long and drawn out. Then the ending is rushed. The killer is never mentioned or suspected. What was the purpose of the poisoned wine? Why kill off Janet and Desi? What was that space murder crap? This is by far the worst of her books and that’s saying a lot because I read Isle of Dogs. I miss the days of Gault and Grethen. I wish Jay Talley was still alive and coming for Scarpetta.