Author: Patricia Cornwell
Publishing Date: 1990
Genre: Suspense
Rating: B
Sensuality: Subtle
Book Disclosure: I borrowed an audio book from my library.
Postmortem is the first book in the Kay Scarpetta series by Patricia Cornwell. Kay Scarpetta is a medical examiner. A serial killer is on the loose in Washington DC. He has been brutally raping and murdering women and Kay has been the medical examiner awoken in the early hours on Saturday mornings. She must take the clues the killer leaves behind to help the police apprehend him.
Postmortem reminded me a lot of the CSI shows on TV. Only instead of Gill Grissom, you have Kay Scarpetta. Kay is a divorced woman in her early 40s. She has no children, but a niece Lucy who is very important to her. But she doesn't see Lucy very often. Kay is married to her job, which is pretty much her sole focus in her life at the moment. She does have a lover, Bill but romance fans will be disappointed because in this book there wasn't much to the relationship.
Despite the lack of romance, I found I enjoyed listening to the book. It is probably not a book I would typically read. Kay is the narrator and she goes into a lot of graphic detail about what the murderer did to the women. It definitely isn't for the faint of heart. I thought the research and details were very well done. I think fans of suspense or mystery will enjoy this book.
3 comments:
I read this novel when it was first published. I thought it was a good mystery. It's, IMO,the best of the series.
Hi Kathy,
So you thought this one was the best of the series. I was hoping that they got better as the series went on. Does any romance for Kay pop up in future books?
Hi Jill!
Mileage varies on this - but I enjoyed the first several books. For me, the high point was From Potter's Field. Things started to slide for me after Black Notice - but some readers contend it started going downhill before then.
A romance does pop up for Kay in the next few books....but it's not anywhere what I would call a traditional romance genre romance. It's very messy, with a lot of bumps in the road along the way. My suggestion is to keep your mystery/suspense hat firmly on.
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