The Scarpetta Factor by
Patricia D. Cornwell
Back in 1985 Bobby Ewing was murdered on
Dallas,
but he was resurrected in a ham-handed “dream sequence” the next year; a television event that may rival the infamous “jump-the-shark” episode of
Happy Days for small-screen hubris. Not to be outdone, author Patricia Cornwell left signature character Kay Scarpetta grieveing upon finding lover Benton Wesley’s engraved Breitling watch amidst the ashes of a bomb site in 1998’s
Point of Origin; only to raise him from the dead five years later in
Blow Fly. The reunited couple has since wed, moved to the northeast, and set up multiple psychiatric and pathology practices in Boston and New York… a real shuttle family. And yes, Lucy and Marino have tagged along, though Marino can only afford housing in NYC, and lacks a squat in Beantown. Scarpetta's billionaire niece Lucy can, of course, afford both…
To keep busy while Ben (or is it Wes? I never remember) toils at the McLean Institute; the Doc, as Marino calls Scarpetta, does
pro bono autopsies for the NYC medical examiner and picks up pocket change as a forensics consultant to CNN. Guess that latter’s how the couple affords both a home in Boston and a
pied-à-terre on Central Park West. Though the latest media sensation in the Big Apple is the disappearance of money maven Hannah Starr three weeks ago, Scarpetta’s not on that case – instead, she’s on the case of a young jogger whose body was discovered in the Park. There’s no reason to think there’s any connection, but during Scarpetta’s next appearance on CNN the host tries to get her to connect dead woman to missing woman, going so far as to claim that both had been seen “getting into a yellow cab.” Gee, I thought everybody in Manhattan rode in cabs all the time…
Wes… errr, Benton has his own problems, involving an “inappropriate” Christmas card from a recently discharged patient at McLean. Something about this woman sets his teeth on edge – though it’s difficult to figure out what could ruffle the preternaturally calm shrink and former FBI wunderkind. That
is, of course, before the bomb shows up on their doorstep. All of which kicks Marino, Lucy, Lucy’s squeeze Jaime Berger (ADA in charge of sex crimes [ain’t that Linda Fairstein’s job?]), and a host of cop-types into high gear. A missing BlackBerry and a deteriorating relationship between Lucy and Jaime add to the fun.
But you ain’t seen nothing yet – if you thought Benton’s (did I get the name right) resurrection was something,
The Scarpetta Factor is gonna set you on your ear.
Somewhere about 1998, the Kay Scarpetta series went off the rails. Instead of being about a ferociously intelligent woman who uses her skills and intellect to solve crimes, the series morphed into something about relationships – dysfunctional relationships. First there was Scarpetta’s niece Lucy, the supercali-technologic-XP-all-precocious young lesbian: her coming out, her violence, her tendency to be completely uncontrollable and just abour as antisocial. Then there was the whole Wesley thing, with his “death” and reappearance. Then there was the Marino thing - a drunken attempt to “hook up” with Scarpetta. There were all the moves - Virginia to South Carolina to Florida to Bos/NYC – and Scarpetta’s career changes. Oh, and the whole wolfman Chandonne thing, too…
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Recently, it looked as though author Patricia Cornwell had pulled the series out of its funk, especially in the last installment – simply named
Scarpetta. In the seventeenth book of this venerable series, however, Cornwell backslides something fierce. Of the nearly 500 pages of
The Scarpetta Factor (a hefty tome), much more than half is given over to the characters’ analysis of their feelings, fears, hopes, desires, memories… There are soliloquies on what kind of tomato Scarpetta should slice up for a 3:00 AM salad to make herself feel better about the bomb squad’s leaving fingerprints on her glass sculpture. There are extended – and I mean several pages – renderings of Lucy’s barely-contained rage at what she considers a slight by an FBO air-traffic controller. There is page after page of Marino and Wesley in their ongoing pissing contest. It’s rather boring, in fact.
Yes, the pieces of a good mystery are all there: Marino has his cop moments; Scarpetta is a pathology goddess in scrubs and a hair net. Lucy has better computers (and more smarts) than NSA signals intelligence, and knows how to use them. But Lord! There is so much misdirection and so much sniveling going on in here that its removal would have cut the book in half and still left the plot intact.
Last time out, I thought Scarpetta was back: sadly, it appears I was wrong.
