Patricia Cornwell, Predator

All of Patricia Cornwells books are brilliant. I cannot move until I have finished one of her books, if I have already started one of them. I would recommend them to absolutely anybody. I have read all the Kay Scarpetta novels in order, and I cannot wait to read the next Predator. I know it will be brilliant and I will be riveted to it completely. I know that anyone that has ever read her books has never been disappointed, and have hurried out to buy all of them. I know from when I got my first one free in a magazine (Postmortem), and I had to get them all after that; so thank you Patricia for putting your mind down on paper for us all to see.

Predator

Patricia Cornwell

Putnam, Nov 2005, $26.95, 406 pp.

ISBN: 0399152830

Dr. Kay Scarpetta is now working at the Natural Forensic Academy where she is the director of forensic science and a consulting forensic pathologist for the Broward County Medical Examiner's office. Pete Marino works there as the head of investigations and a part-time death investigator for the Broward County's Medical Examiner's office. Benton Wesley is at Harvard working on PREDATOR, a study using cutting edge technology to discover whether the brains of mass murderers are different than the average person.

Hog calls Pete Marino who asks Scarpetta to look into the Johnny Swift case. Johnny's twin brother discovered him dead. Evidence at first suggested suicide but now the theory is murder might have occurred. Lucy Farinelli,, Kay's niece is tracking Johnny's last days in the hopes of getting some answers because he was special to her. She picks up Stevie for a one night stand and notices tattoos on her breasts and buttocks. Benton, who is asked to examine a body sees the same tattoos that were on Stevie's body. A thug is keeping track of Benton while Kay needs to find the key that will unlock the answers they all seek.

This is a very different book then all the other Kay Scarpetta novels as this is told in the third person and is a stand alone book meaning that it doesn't require reading previous novels in the series. The key protagonists go their way as if the previous events in their life didn't really change them. This crime thriller is a fantastic work with equal parts of action and character development, but as always the research done on the book is scientifically correct and meticulously researched.

Harriet Klausner