Postmortem (Kay Scarpetta) (Mass Market Paperback)

by Patricia Cornwell (Author) "IT WAS RAINING IN RICHMOND ON FRIDAY, JUNE 6..." (more)
Key Phrases: glittery residue, tan cloth belt, strangling cases, Lori Petersen, Matt Petersen, Abby Turnbull (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Cornwell, a former reporter who has worked in a medical examiner's office, sets her first mystery in Richmond, Va. Chief medical officer for the commonwealth of Virginia, Dr. Kay Scarpetta, the narrator, dwells on her efforts to identify "Mr. Nobody," the strangler of young women. The doctor devotes days and nights to gathering computer data and forensic clues to the killer, although she's hampered by male officials anxious to prove themselves superior to a woman. Predictably, Scarpetta's toil pays off, but not before the strangler attacks her; a reformed male chauvinist, conveniently nearby, saves her. Although readers may be naturally disposed to admire Scarpetta and find the novel's scientific aspect interesting, they are likely to be put off by her self-aggrandizement and interminable complaints, annoying flaws in an otherwise promising debut.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
This award-winning novel based on Richmond's real-life "South Side Strangler" case introduced Virginia's chief medical examiner, Kay Scarpetta, and launched Cornwell's career. Narrator Lorelei King generally has a pleasant reading voice and uses good pacing to build suspense. However, this is not a successful merger of book and reader for American ears. Listeners may be confused to hear that Kay wears "cocky" (khaki), for instance, and accenting the second syllable of such words as modem and condom distract the listener from the story. Furthermore, the voices of supporting characters (such as Marino, a "stoopid" New Jersey cop, and Lucy, a fussy Southern child) are stereotypical. Fortunately, an unabridged version of Postmortem is available from several other producers, including Recorded Books (Audio Reviews, LJ 2/15/94). Not recommended.?Juleigh Muirhead Clark, Williamsburg, Va.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Pocket (December 30, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743477154
• ISBN-13: 978-0743477154
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (142 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #12,556 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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• This is item 1 in The Kay Scarpetta Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars American How & British Why, December 14, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Postmortem (Kay Scarpetta Mysteries) (Mass Market Paperback)

Two camps of crime writers across the Atlantic: American writers focus on "How", British writers "Why". "Postmortem" perhaps represents a recent trend in crime fictions in the US: graphic violence & gore. Efforts are focused on how the victims die & how the killers kill. Reading the details of the scene is like watching a Hollywood R-rated movie. The book stimulates our senses and emotions more than it satisfies our intelligence. A question of "how" has to be addressed by an answer of "how". That's why we see the most state-of-the-art, high-tech forensic technique in US novels. The laser gun in "postmortem" looks like a toy compared with all the gadgets you'll find in Deaver's Lincoln Rhyme series. When the pages are overloaded with HOW's, little room is left for WHY's, and the final conclusions seem to have little significance. In "postmortem", we never know why the killer did what he did, and in the end the author simply makes the character yet another "crazy" person so commonly found in US novels, and as readers we also are too emotionally drained to care. The British tradition, from Doyle to Christie to the more recent Dexter, tends to focus more on WHY. These authors spent very little time on the crime scenes, let alone all the "bloody details". Instead, they liked to ask WHY the crime is committed. From there the stories evolve around the social & psychological aspects and the relationships among the characters. There is no sensual excitement, but more intellectual satisfaction. Often I wonder if this difference between the two groups of writers reflects the difference of their writing philosophies, or worse, the natures of the two societies.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lock your doors and windows, sit back, and enjoy!, June 30, 2000

By	Kori Frazier (Kent, OH United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Postmortem (Kay Scarpetta Mysteries) (Mass Market Paperback)

After reading Patricia Cornwell's "Unnatural Exposure" I was so drawn to her writing style and characters that I decided I had to have more. So, I took it upon myself to add "Postmortem" to my library of suspense novels. Although I am new to Cornwell's books, I think that this may be one of the best books I have ever read. The way she uses her medical knowledge and background to create the plot and characters amazes me, and the story itself was so real that each chapter sent me on a rampage throughout my house to make sure that all the doors and windows were locked! I am a high school English student planning on becoming a writer myself, and I believe that Patricia Cornwell has given me an excellent role model to look at in my own writing endeavors. I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys suspenseful reading and forensic mysteries....as long as you can keep the fact that it is only a book in your mind....

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Let's start at the very beginning...., September 15, 2007

By	Amanda Richards "Modest to the extreme" (Georgetown, Guyana) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

...a very good place to start - except that I've already read two others in the series, namely Predator and From Potter's Field.

The series so far:

Postmortem (1990)
Body of Evidence (1991)
All That Remains (1992)
Cruel and Unusual (1993)
The Body Farm (1994)
From Potter's Field (1995)
Cause of Death (1996)
Unnatural Exposure (1996)
Point of Origin (1998)
Black Notice (1999)
The Last Precinct (2000)
Blow Fly (2003)
Trace (2004)
Predator (2005)

(Book of the Dead is scheduled for Oct 2007.)

Fortunately, there's no need to read them in order, and the reading experience was actually better given that I already knew how some of the characters would be developed in the future.

On its own the book isn't bad for a debut novel, except that it tends to get bogged down in places, the characters don't really come to life until later down the series, and the technology is understandably dated, given the techniques now available. (Naturally, it may have been cutting edge stuff when the book was written, which I took into consideration when reading it)

There's a little more CSI involved than in the ones I've read before (it gets less and less in later books) and the story revolves around a serial killer who eventually gets around to the Chief Medical Examiner. The modus operandi of the killer is suitably gruesome, but for the majority of the book Scarpetta seems to the weakest link as she struggles to hold her own in a world of men.

About the same as "From Potter's Field", but better than "Predator".

Rated: 3.5 stars



Amanda Richards, September 15, 2007