Postmortem A Kay Scarpetta Novel, by Patricia Cornwell
Postmortem is an award-winning mystery novel that introduces Dr. Kay
Scarpetta to the literary world. Scarpetta is a determined
and intensive bulldog when it comes to solving cases that
come to her through the morgue. As the chief medical examiner
for the Commonwealth of Virginia, Kay Scarpetta narrates
her personal search for a vicious serial killer who has
terrified the city of Richmond.
A string of
rapes and strangulations has the southern city in the grips
of fear. The police are under incredible pressure to find
the killer and, not surprisingly, the mostly male police
force resent what they perceive to be interference by Scarpetta.
Of course, Kay Scarpetta is partly to blame here as she
is certainly is pushy enough to make any male chauvinist
want to consider strangling her on the spot!
Cornwell, who
is a former crime reporter and spent time working in a medical
examiner's office, speaks with authority and knowledge in
this mystery. We are given a primer on the latest forensic
techniques as Scarpetta becomes obsessed with finding the
strangler that she has dubbed, "Mr. Nobody." The
novel is at its most compelling when we follow Scarpetta
as she devotes endless days and evenings to tracking down
the smallest clue in the case.
Based in part on a real-life
crime spree by a murderer known in Richmond as the "South
Side Strangler", Postmortem, was the genesis of Cornwell's
career as one of the most popular mystery writers of the
last decade. Many of her fans consider this her best novel
and if you've been fascinated by the way that modern science
has been successfully used to catch criminals, you won't
want to miss reading Postmortem.
