From Potter's Field
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Reading Cornwell's latest is like riding one of those amusement-park roller coasters. The rider gets on, and the car starts slowly up the first big hill, momentarily hesitating at the top before plunging down, down, and around, leaving the rider gasping and breathless, with trembling limbs and a palpitating heart, exhilarated but shaken, even after the ride is over. Cornwell lulls the reader with a slow start, then builds relentlessly to a heart-stopping climax 400 hundred pages later. Virginia medical examiner Kay Scarpetta once again faces her psychopathic nemesis, Temple Gault, the horrifying, seemingly invincible serial killer. Gault has struck again, this time brutally murdering a young homeless woman in New York's Central Park on Christmas Eve. Gault's also broken into CAIN, the know-all, see-all FBI computer system that Scarpetta's niece, Lucy, has created. And in his uncanny way, Gault has entered Scarpetta's mind, anticipating her every thought and move as he goes about his own drug-induced, psychotic killing games. It takes all Scarpetta's steely courage and mental superiority to stay a step ahead of Gault, to try to stop him before he kills again. From Richmond to New York, Scarpetta, her friend Captain Pete Marino, and her niece Lucy stay hot on Gault's trail, and finally, in a terrifying, knuckle-whitening, breathtaking climax, they trap him deep in the bowels of New York's subway system. Once again, Cornwell proves herself one of today's most talented crime fiction writers, an author who keeps her readers on the edges of their seats with magnificent plotting, masterful writing, and marvelous suspense. This is certain to be one of the most popular thrillers of the year. (Reviewed May 01, 1995)0684195984Emily Melton

Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta plays a tense cat-and-mouse game with a serial killer, an old enemy, in her sixth outing (following The Body Farm), and he has her badly rattled. The story begins as a rotten Christmas for Scarpetta: Temple Gault has struck again, leaving a naked, apparently homeless girl shot in Central Park on Christmas Eve; Scarpetta, as the FBI's consulting pathologist, is called in. Later, a transit cop is found shot in a subway tunnel, and, back home in Richmond, Va., the body of a crooked local sheriff is delivered to Scarpetta's own morgue by the elusive, brilliant Gault. The normally unflappable Scarpetta finds herself hyperventilating and nearly shooting her own niece. In the end, some ingenious forensic detective work and a visit to the killer's agonized family set up a high-tech climax back in the New York subway, which Gault treats as the Phantom of the Opera did the sewers of Paris. There's something faintly unconvincing about Gault (in a competitive field, it's tough to create a really horrific serial killer), and Scarpetta, stuck with her own family troubles and involved in a rather glum affair with a colleague, seems to be running low on energy. Still, this is a compelling, fast-moving tale, written in a highly compressed style, and only readers who know that Cornwell can do better are likely to complain. Literary Guild, Doubleday Book Club and Mystery Guild selections. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Cornwell's Dr. Kay Scarpetta is fast becoming everyone's favorite forensic specialist; her latest outing, The Body Farm (LJ 9/1/94), was #2 on the New York Times Best Sellers list. This time, Scarpetta must contend with a serial killer who has breached the FBI's top secret artificial intelligence system. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Before he killed the woman Dr. Kay Scarpetta knows only as Jane, Scarpetta's nemesis Temple Gault (Cruel and Unusual, 1993) took his victim to the shark exhibit at the Museum of Natural History, walked her through the Sheep Meadow in Central Park, and made her strip despite the Christmas Eve weather. And then? The dead woman's body provides the most eloquent testimony, and Scarpettadragged away from cutting up a Richmond drug-dealer to consult with the FBI's Investigative Support Unitis the ideal interpreter of Gault's handiwork. But Gault is always a lengthening step ahead of her. He's already stolen her Amex card and broken into CAIN, the Crime Artificial Intelligence Network pioneered by Lucy, Scarpetta's brilliant niece. As Gault's footfalls grow louderin one particularly macabre sequence he delivers the corpse of his latest victim directly to Scarpetta's morgueit's obvious that he has his eye on Scarpetta and Lucy. Their only defense: Scarpetta's uncannily revealing analysis of telltale physical evidence ranging from a set of gold foil dental fillings to a pair of jungle boots. When Cornwell drops the helter-skelter subplots of The Body Farm (1994) and keeps Scarpetta's endless fights with Lucy, lover Benton Wesley, and neanderthal pal Capt. Pete Marino in the background, nobody can make the details of forensic investigation as rivetingright up to the moment when the killer's ``transected femoral artery hemorrhaged to the rhythm of his horrible heart.'' Take that, Hannibal Lecter! (Literary Guild/Mystery Guild main selection)

Cornwell's Dr. Kay Scarpetta is fast becoming everyone's favorite forensic specialist; her latest outing, The Body Farm (LJ 9/1/94), was #2 on the New York Times Best Sellers list. This time, Scarpetta must contend with a serial killer who has breached the FBI's top secret artificial intelligence system. Copyright 1995 Cahners Business Information.

What a letdown! After the emotionally involving The Body Farm (LJ 9/1/94), Cornwell returns with a ludicrously convoluted plot involving the not very interesting serial killer Temple Brooks Gault, first seen in Cruel and Unusual (Scribner, 1993) and making a fleeting appearance in The Body Farm. The book opens on a snowy Christmas Eve in New York's Central Park with Gault standing over the body of his latest victim, sculpting a bloody snowball. When Dr. Kay Scarpetta, a consulting pathologist for the FBI, and her colleagues Wesley Benton and Pete Morino examine the unidentified nude woman, they recognize Gault's handiwork. Thus begins a long, tedious cat-and-mouse chase as Gault taunts Scarpetta by infiltrating CAIN, the FBI's artificial-intelligence system. The bodies and the gore pile up. Readers unfamiliar with the earlier books will find Cornwell's story confusing. Still, her books are popular, so there will be demand. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 4/15/95.]-Wilda Williams, "Library Journal" Copyright 1995 Cahners Business Information.

Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta plays a tense cat-and-mouse game with a serial killer, an old enemy, in her sixth outing (following The Body Farm), and he has her badly rattled. The story begins as a rotten Christmas for Scarpetta: Temple Gault has struck again, leaving a naked, apparently homeless girl shot in Central Park on Christmas Eve; Scarpetta, as the FBI's consulting pathologist, is called in. Later, a transit cop is found shot in a subway tunnel, and, back home in Richmond, Va., the body of a crooked local sheriff is delivered to Scarpetta's own morgue by the elusive, brilliant Gault. The normally unflappable Scarpetta finds herself hyperventilating and nearly shooting her own niece. In the end, some ingenious forensic detective work and a visit to the killer's agonized family set up a high-tech climax back in the New York subway, which Gault treats as the Phantom of the Opera did the sewers of Paris. There's something faintly unconvincing about Gault (in a competitive field, it's tough to create a really horrific serial killer), and Scarpetta, stuck with her own family troubles and involved in a rather glum affair with a colleague, seems to be running low on energy. Still, this is a compelling, fast-moving tale, written in a highly compressed style, and only readers who know that Cornwell can do better are likely to complain. Literary Guild, Doubleday Book Club and Mystery Guild selections. (Aug.) Copyright 1995 Cahners Business Information.