The Body Farm [Large Print] [Paperback]

Patricia Cornwell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1996 | Series: Thorndike Paperback Bestsellers

"The Body Farm" is a remote facility in the foothills of Virginia where a team of experts assess how bodies deteriorate in various conditions. Dr Kay Scarpetta needs their knowledge when asked to investigate a girl's murder. She needs to establish not only how she died, but where.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

New York Times bestselling author Patricia Cornwell brings back Kay Scarpetta, consulting forensic pathologist for the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit, in her grittiest and most compelling novel. In rural North Carolina, the brutal murder of eleven-year-old Emily Steiner has shaken a small town. But more disturbing are the details of the crimes, chillingly reminiscent of the handiwork of a serial killer who has eluded the unit for years. Into this volatile atmosphere comes Scarpetta's ingenious, rebellious niece Lucy, an FBI intern with a promising future in Quantico's computer engineering facility--until she is accused of a shocking security violation. While coming to terms with Lucy, Kay must conduct a grisly forensic investigation at a clandestine research facility in Tennessee known as the Body Farm. There she will find more answers to Emily Steiner's murder--and evidence that paints a picture of a crime more horrifying than she imagined . . . --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Cornwell ( Body of Evidence ; All That Remains ) casts a wider, surer narrative net in the latest case set for her increasingly complex heroine, Kay Scarpetta, Chief Medical Examiner for the Commonwealth of Virginia. As an FBI consultant, Scarpetta investigates the North Carolina murder of 11-year-old Emily Steiner, whose mutilation suggests the M.O. of an escaped killer met previously in Cruel and Unusual. Forensic clues from the body's second autopsy prompt Scarpetta to request that certain experiments be made at the University of Tennessee's Decay Research Facility, known as the Body Farm. Meanwhile, she, Pete Marino of the Richmond, Va., police, and her new love interest, FBI Unit Chief Benton Wesley investigate the apparent suicide (from autoerotic asphyxiation) of the local FBI agent in charge of the case. Then, Scarpetta's computer-whiz niece Lucy, working at FBI headquarters at Quantico, is charged with violating security. During her travels between North Carolina and Virginia, Scarpetta worries about both the less-than-forthcoming Lucy and Marino, who becomes emotionally entangled with Emily's beautiful stricken mother. Results at the Body Farm lead her to a convincing, if abrupt, resolution. Deeper characterization and a more intricate plot mark this fifth in a consistently compelling series. 500,000 first printing; paperback rights to Berkley; audio rights to Simon & Schus ter; Literary Guild selection.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 407 pages
• Publisher: G. K. Hall & Company (March 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0783811233
• ISBN-13: 978-0783811239
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (151 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,641,042 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Patricia Cornwell was born on June 9, 1956, in Miami, Florida, and grew up in Montreat, North Carolina.

Following graduation from Davidson College in 1979, she began working at the Charlotte Observer, rapidly advancing from listing television programs to writing feature articles to covering the police beat. She won an investigative reporting award from the North Carolina Press Association for a series of articles on prostitution and crime in downtown Charlotte.

Her award-winning biography of Ruth Bell Graham, A Time for Remembering, was published in 1983. From 1984 to 1990, she worked as a technical writer and a computer analyst at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Richmond, Virginia.

Cornwell's first crime novel, Postmortem, was published by Scribner's in 1990. Initially rejected by seven major publishing houses, it became the first novel to win the Edgar, Creasey, Anthony, and Macavity Awards as well as the French Prix du Roman d'Aventure in a single year. In Postmortem, Cornwell introduced Dr. Kay Scarpetta as the intrepid Chief Medical Examiner of the Commonwealth of Virginia. In 1999, Dr. Scarpetta herself won the Sherlock Award for best detective created by an American author.

Following the success of her first novel, Cornwell has written a series of bestsellers featuring Kay Scarpetta, her detective sidekick Pete Marino and her brilliant and unpredictable niece, Lucy Farinelli, including: Body of Evidence (1991); All That Remains (1992); Cruel and Unusual (1993), which won Britain's prestigious Gold Dagger Award for the year's best crime novel; The Body Farm (1994); From Potter's Field (1995); Cause of Death (1996); Unnatural Exposure (1997); Point of Origin (1998); Black Notice (1999); The Last Precinct (2000); Blow Fly (2003); Trace (2004); Predator (2005); Book of the Dead (2007), which won the 2008 Galaxy British Book Awards' Books Direct Crime Thriller of the Year, making Cornwell the first American ever to win this award; Scarpetta (2008); The Scarpetta Factor (2009); and Port Mortuary (2010). In 2011 Cornwell was awarded the Medal of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters, one of France's most prestigious awards to honor those who have distinguished themselves in the domains of art or literature, or by their contribution to the development of culture in France and throughout the world.

In addition to the Scarpetta novels, she has written three best-selling books featuring Andy Brazil: Hornet's Nest (1996), Southern Cross (1998) and Isle of Dogs (2001); two cook books: Scarpetta's Winter Table (1998) and Food to Die For (2001); and a children's book: Life's Little Fable (1999). In 1997, Cornwell updated A Time for Remembering, which was reissued as Ruth, A Portrait: The Story of Ruth Bell Graham. Intrigued by Scotland Yard's John Grieve's observation that no one had ever tried to use modern forensic evidence to solve the murders committed by Jack the Ripper, Cornwell began her own investigation of the serial killer's crimes. In Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper--Case Closed (2002), she narrates her discovery of compelling evidence to indict the famous artist Walter Sickert as the Ripper.

In January 2006, the New York Times Magazine began a 15-week serialization of At Risk, featuring Massachusetts State Police investigator Win Garano and his boss, district attorney Monique Lamont. Its sequel, The Front, was serialized in the London Times in the spring of 2008. Both novellas were subsequently published as books and promptly optioned for adaptation by Lifetime Television Network, starring Daniel Sunjata and Andie MacDowell. The films made their debut in April 2010.

In April 2009, Fox acquired the film rights to the Scarpetta novels, featuring Angelina Jolie as Dr. Kay Scarpetta. Cornwell herself wrote and co-produced the movie ATF for ABC.

Often interviewed on national television as a forensic consultant, Cornwell is a founder of the Virginia Institute of Forensic Science and Medicine, a founding member of the National Forensic Academy, a member of the Advisory Board for the Forensic Sciences Training Program at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, NYC, and a member of the Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital's National Council, where she is an advocate for psychiatric research. She is also well known for her philanthropic contributions to animal rescue and criminal justice, as well as endowing college scholarships and promoting the cause of literacy on the national scene. Some of her projects include the establishment of an ICU at Cornell's Animal Hospital, the archaeological excavation of Jamestown and the scientific study of the Confederacy's submarine H.L. Hunley. Most recently, she donated a million dollars to Harvard's Fogg Museum to establish a chair in inorganic science.

Cornwell's books have been translated into 36 languages across more than 50 countries, and she is regarded as one of the major international best-selling authors. Her novels are praised for their meticulous research and an insistence on accuracy in every detail, especially in forensic medicine and police procedures. She is so committed to verisimilitude that, among other accomplishments, she became a helicopter pilot and a certified scuba diver, and qualified for a motorcycle license because she was writing about characters who were doing these things. "It is important to me to live in the world I write about," she often says. "If I want a character to do or know something, I want to do or know the same thing."

Visit the author's website at: www.patriciacornwell.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars loved the audio book, September 28, 1997

By 

Ann Rumsey (Madison, TN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Body Farm (Kay Scarpetta) (Audio Cassette)

I was going on the road for a six hour round trip and in search of the 2nd installment from Stephen King's Dark Tower series on audio book from my local library. I had just finished Patricia Cornwell's Post Mortem in paper back and was starting to become a fast friend of Dr Kay Scarpetta. So when I couldn't get Stephen King, I tried The Body Farm audio book and .... WOW I was hooked. The narrator's voice was very compelling...the story was riveting...and I found myself driving around the block in my car to finish a chapter. I am now trying to catch up with the other Patricia Cornwell books...and I will list this one at the top of my recommended reading list. For me, who frequents the library so that I won't go broke buying the two to three books I read a week.. I WILL buy this book for my personal collection. Patricia Cornwell has a great style, great details, characters that you will love to read about, and careful details of the people and places in the geographical areas she writes about. I am from Tennessee..and the Southern references ring true to me.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Another Cornwell page-turner, June 27, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Body Farm (Paperback)

I've read many of Patricia Cornwell's novels and enjoyed them all. It's true that I pegged the killer in this one early on, but it was still an enjoyable read. What I like about these novels, unlike Dean Koontz's, is that we have the same protagonist and therefore can easily identify with her. Unlike other reviewers whose comments are printed here, I do want to know about the personal lives of Lucy, Marino, Benton, etc. This is part of Kay's world. If you want just the facts, watch Dragnet. And if you're going to dis Ms. Cornwell, at least spell her name right!!

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Very Good Place to Start, August 21, 2000

By 

Elena J. Seymour (Fredericksburg, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Body Farm (Kay Scarpetta) (Paperback)

The Body Farm is my first Patricia Cornwell read. It was recomended to me by a person who works in a bookstore. He said it was not absolutely necessary to read them "In order". (Note Postmortem is the first in the "series") Our antagonist is Dr. Kay Scarpetta, who is the chief Medical examiner for Virginia. She is also a lawyer and a consultant for the FBI. This story, that centers around the murder of a young girl leads us in many directions, and gives us the chance to follow many leads. The book is littered with all sorts of fascinating behind the scenes forensic activity. So if your into that sort of thing, such as analyzing photos, evidence samples, and the study of the time of death you'll enjoy a lot of the detail that goes into the development of the investigation. This book also enables to experience many of Dr. Scarpetta's relationships. We are able to see her interact with her niece Lucy, an FBI "intern", Benton Wesley a FBI collegue and romantic interest, and Pete Marino a detective from Virginia. These are all charcters that appear to be present in many of her stories. With out giving too much a way, the story uunfolds rather similarly to an onion, the way you would peel back layer upon layer to discover well in this case "who done it". The story does not drag at all, even with all the technical mumbo jumbo which was even easy for a lay-man to understand, and is filled with lot's of "page turning" suspense. Let me say, I enjoyed it so much so that I immediately picked up "Unnatural Exposure" and plowed through that one too.