I haven't enjoyed a Kay Scarpetta book this much since Port Mortuary. Kay receiving the 17 year old videos from Carrie had me hooked from the start. Very fast paced and the entire concept of data fiction fascinates me.

I have been feeling through the last 3 books in the series that Patricia Cornwell is really teasing us with Lucy always being implicated in or connected to Kay's cases. Lucy has all that money and crazy smarts that I just keep waiting for her to let out an evil "MWAH HAH HAH HAH!" laugh and turn out to be the evil genius behind a string of murders. What a threat she would be to everyone, having set up the IT and security systems at the medical examiner's office!

Also, I have begun reading the last 3 books and wondering when in the world Kay is going to get fed up with Benton and leave him. First he pretends he's dead and ever since he's come back, he's always keeping secrets from her and colluding with Lucy. It's too much excess drama, Kay. You don't need it, girl!

I've not read any previous Kay Scarpetta series books, and it seems awfully apparent that that is to my detriment. Meaning, I think this series may need to be read in order because there is a lot of past information that the reader needs catching up on, and unfortunately I think the author dragged it out way way too long. There is also dialog that totally frustrated me: someone would ask a question and it would not get answered straightaway. (Ran out of room).

Four stars for Cornwell! The performance on the audio, however, was so annoying that I almost stopped listening. I have the print version, but am in a car for a long commute daily. I checked the book, and the annoyances were all in the performance, not the writing, so I tried to rate the writing separately. This was more disappointing because I fell in love with this series by listening to an audio version of The Bone Bed, with Kate Reading performing. Her voice is Kay Scarpetta to me, but there are earlier books performed by someone else and they were still good.

Anyway, this is the 23rd in the series, but the arc in this book reaches to the one before, certainly, and further back in the series. It could easily be read as a stand alone, but reading at least the previous book might be a good idea.

I love the Scarpetta series and while I found the story to be very intriguing, I am not a fan of whiney Scarpetta. Beware: spoiler alert below!...

While I understand she is recovering from a spear to the thigh, I would have liked to have read a stronger, more recovered Scarpetta. In the end, I was able to get past the whininess (apparently this is a word) and enjoy the book, it is not my all time favorite in this series. What I do like is that Cornwell has begun bringing back old characters and the books seem to be continuations of the current story. If you are an avid reader of the series, this one is a must read so you are prepared for the next one. :)

Gripping read throughout but a disappointing ending that feels rushed

Why did this take so long to read? Because this book is about 800,000 pages long and there was a waiting list on the ebook so I had to wait to re-check it out.

I've said it before, but I think I'm done with Cornwell and Scarpetta for good now. These books are slow and too long. The characters are confused, conflicting and always so damn depressed. I mean, seriously, do Benton and Scarpetta even enjoy being with each other or is it really about Italian food and sex with them? Everyone keeps secrets from Kay because, what? she's not brilliant and gets into MORE trouble because she doggedly follows every lead? Oh, also, she ALWAYS FIGURED IT OUT. Seriously, she's a grown woman who has been extraordinarily successful in her career. Stop demeaning her and treating her like a precious little flower.

Cornwell is a great author. She can be a master storyteller, she has just worked on Scarpetta too long and has damaged all of these characters beyond redemption. She broke Scarpetta for some unknown reason and has treated her as a victim ever since. In fact, as I write this, I'm getting even more upset with this author. For every success Scarpetta has in her professional life, Cornwell has to ruin one more aspect of her personal life. Enough already. Please, I beg of Patricia Cornwell: either redeem Kay and those in her life or just be done with it.

I said after # 21 that I was done with Scarpetta- after years of loving Scarpetta novels. I forgot I said that and read #23,I won't forget again.
i struggled to get through this one in a week when I used to read a novel from Cornwell in the night or two.

Enthralling

I’ve read a few of Patricia Cornwell’s other Scarpetta novels and this one is just as exciting. It’s quite a thriller, it gets your heart pounding. I like how Kay is forced to juggle her personal and professional lives as her family is involved in cover ups and are in danger. I like how Marino is part of their little family and how he’d do anything for Lucy. I like how they describe Carrie as a sociopath and how smart she is but in a way that is always one step ahead. Twisted and crazy but smart.

Depraved Heart by Patricia Cornwell was a solid, steady crime novel.

This is the 23rd book in this series, and of course it's the first one I read. Believe me, that doesn't help AT ALL. Not knowing a lot of the background about these characters and their situations didn't help my understanding of the relationships between these characters when reading this book through. While it didn't ruin the entire book for me, I think it somewhat ruined the experience. Why is the bad guy, well, the bad guy? Why do certain people not like each other? Patricia tries her very best to give as much background as possible in short bits, but it just wasn't enough.

Besides that issue, this book was really good! I love a good crime thriller - like Kathy Reichs, Patricia Cornwell has her own style and it's fantastic! It's a splash of mystery, some R rated scenes, and some solid character development along the way.

This book seems like it spans a long time, but in reality I think it's only a day or two. I don't even think it goes into the night! So this entire plot involving a dead body and "finding" the killer happened in under 24 hours?! It might not be believable, but it somehow worked. I didn't even notice it was only one day until I looked back over the story and some of the other reviews. I would like to see that expanded on - maybe make the books over a couple days, at the very least? But that's just my opinion.

Overall, I liked this book. I definitely would like to start from the beginning and work through all 23+ books, but I doubt I'll be able to find them all (or find the time. My goodness, summer is already over when I wrote this review?!). Gritty crime stories like these always make my days more interesting - some days I love an ooey, gooey, guilty pleasure romance and other days I want an R rated crime/thriller or horror to take up my time.

Three out of five stars.


I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads.