Red Mist: Scarpetta (Book 19)

Patricia Cornwell

Dec 2011 · Kay Scarpetta Book 19 · Sold by Penguin

About this ebook

With high-tension suspense and cutting-edge technology, Patricia Cornwell—the world’s #1 bestselling crime writer—once again proves her exceptional ability to entertain and enthrall in this remarkable novel featuring chief medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta.

On her quest to find out exactly what happened to her former deputy chief, Jack Fielding, murdered six months before, Scarpetta drives to the Georgia Prison for Women to meet a convicted sex offender and the mother of a vicious and diabolically brilliant killer. Against the advice of her FBI criminal intelligence agent husband, Benton Wesley, Scarpetta is determined to hear this woman out.

Scarpetta has both personal and professional reasons to learn more about a string of grisly killings: the murder of a Savannah family years earlier, a young woman on death row, and then other inexplicable deaths that begin to occur at a breathtaking pace. Driven by inner forces, Scarpetta discovers connections that compel her to conclude that what she thought ended with Fielding’s death and an attempt on her own life is only the beginning of something far more destructive: a terrifying terrain of conspiracy and potential terrorism on an international scale.

And she is the only one who can stop it.

Ratings and reviews

I stopped reading Patricia Cornwell after Port Mortuary because the book was too introspective and lost much of the suspense and intensity of the forensic investigations of her eariler novels. She seems to have returned, to an extent, to her successful strategy of scientific investigation and personal concern for the souls of the lost. Red Mist is still, in my opinion, too focused on the personal conflicts of Kay Scarpetta, Lucy, Marino, et.al., without enough focus on the victim or solving the crime. I'd really appreciate her going back to the original formula for the Scarpetta novels. Still not sure whether or not I'll read Dust.

I really enjoy Cornwell and the Kay Scarpetta series of books. I read the new novels as soon as they come out. This is one of my favorites. Too bad one has to read Port Mortuary to understand Red Mist. Port Mortuary was a good read but confusing and I went back over sections of it before reading Red Mist. So glad I did. I found this one exciting and a must read for Scarpetta fans. I never did like Jaimie Berger's character but what happened to her in this novel even she did not deserve. I really felt sorry for Marino at the end. Will this poor guy ever get a break? I would love to see him find a real love interest. He's held his torch for Kay for far too long! Pick this book up quick! It's a winner!

Cornwell creates a dense plot crowded with inconsequential details, injects aimless dialogue and offers her opinion on various aspects of the plot that come across as sermonizing and, ultimately offensive. J.P. Miller. Cambridge, MA

About the author

Patricia Cornwell is one of the world’s major internationally bestselling authors, translated into more than thirty-five languages in more than 120 countries. She is a founder of the Virginia Institute of Forensic Science and Medicine; a founding member of the National Forensic Academy; a member of the Advisory Board for the Forensic Sciences Training Program at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, New York City; and a member of the Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital’s National Council, where she is an advocate for psychiatric research. In 2008, Cornwell won the Galaxy British Book Awards’s Book Direct Crime Thriller of the Year—the first American to win this prestigious award. In 2011, she was awarded the medal of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the Ministry of Culture in Paris. Her most recent bestsellers include Port Mortuary, The Scarpetta Factor, The Front, and Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper—Case Closed. Her earlier works include Postmortem—the only novel to win five major crime awards in a single year—and Cruel & Unusual, which won Britain’s Gold Dagger Award for best crime novel of 1993. Dr. Kay Scarpetta herself won the 1999 Sherlock Award for the best detective created by an American author.