I used to love Kay Scarpetta, in fact, I might have to go dig out some of the old books just so I can remind myself of how much I loved her. Doing so might actually help me forget the past few monstronsities about her. These books used to be about finding a killer and using science to do so. Now everything about this series is "what is Kay thinking about and how will she get over the horrible things that have happened and will continue to happen to her". THIS FORMULA ISN'T WORKING CORNWELL! And what the heck... why wasn't the ending of the previous book addressed. Something about a shot going off while Scarpetta was sitting in a tropical place outside on the porch of their rented cabin... Am I just imagining that part happened? Or was Kay perhaps imagining since she had just going through some pretty heavy stuff... Maybe some PTSD going on?

Aside from the not working formula and spending too much time in Kay's head versus solving the crimes at hand, the details in these books have become sooo completely unnecessary. We could cut out roughly 30 words per page and you would still have the same story and you wouldn't feel so bogged down by the lack of story. For example, "I stepped into the shade of a dogwood tree." Seriously? Who the eff cares what kind of tree it was, and why does it matter where you are standing? She is having a "psuedo" conversation with Lucy and Marino. And I think we all know what I mean by psuedo since Lucy and Benton can't have real conversations with anyone about what is going on in their lives. That entire sentence was completely unnecessary and doesn't help to move the story forward, nor does it help me visualize anything that I care about in the story either. My reading experience isn't aided by her descriptions. In fact, my experience is quite frankly slowed down by her descriptions.

And on a different note, this book takes place over the course of about 12 hours. Cornwell has written another Scarpette novel in this format and I don't think that one turned out very well either. The lack of setting changes and slow time movement irked me. We are quite literally halfway through this book and we had only had one major scene change.

I'm not sure I can handle another one of these books if they are ALL going to be in this style. Go home Cornwell and please rethink your delivery style and plot. How on earth does this book have a rating of 3.55 on Goodreads?!?