Flesh and Blood by Patricia Cornwell, book review: Meaty addition to a gore-soaked series
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Patricia Cornwell's books featuring her forensic sleuth Kay Scarpetta have been bestsellers for years, since her debut Post Mortem in 1990 inaugurated what is now a 22-book sequence.
I once asked her how she felt about each new female pretender to her crown being announced on the jacket as "The Next Patricia Cornwell"; she replied: "But I want to be the next Patricia Cornwell!" I took it to mean that she wanted to recapture some of the excitement of those early years, but she and her creation are now crime fiction institutions, with each new book expected to top – or at least match – its predecessor.
In Flesh and Blood Dr Kay Scarpetta is in Miami with her FBI-profiler husband Benton Wesley. She notices something curious on a wall: seven pennies. It doesn't appear to be a child's game, as the coins are dated 1981 and appear to have been newly minted. Is it connected with the killing, a short distance away, of a music teacher shot as he took groceries from his car? Like every vacation that every sleuth has taken in every crime novel, Scarpetta's break is to be cut short, and she is soon on the trail of a serial sniper – one who leaves no evidence after his logic-defying executions. And when Scarpetta investigates a shipwreck off the coast of Florida, she finds evidence that seems to draw her technologically gifted niece Lucy (the gay relative we know from other novels) into the frame.
Other writers with feminist agendas (such as Sara Paretsky) devise scenarios in which the heroine encounters frequent sexist behaviour from men, but Cornwell has a different tactic, imbuing Scarpetta with forthright, authoritative and confrontational qualities traditionally identified as male; there are no battles with sexism for Scarpetta – she's already won them. Cornwell has been criticised for her unflinching treatment of the gruesome, though one might wonder why the squeamish would pick up a novel about a forensic pathologist.
This book remains focused on its single-minded protagonists, Scarpetta and her associates (unlike James Lee Burke, Cornwell avoids state-of-the-nation novels, although Barack Obama has a walk-on part in this one); internecine conflicts in the team are as sparky as ever. Notably tenser than Dust, its predecessor, Flesh and Blood justifies its 370 pages, but its sheer bulk means it's not one for the Cornwell novice. Aficionados, however, will be happy to immerse themselves once again in Kay Scarpetta's blood-drenched universe.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments