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Engaged from the first page
Book Review
By Derryll White
Cornwell, Patricia D. (1993). Cruel & Unusual.
This is the fourth in Cornwell’s series featuring the State of Virginia’s chief medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta. I am surprised at how quickly Cornwell has hit her stride as a novelist. Her voice is unique and her treatment of the suspense genre is thoughtful and poetic.
Dr. Scarpetta is a forceful, intelligent professional woman at the top of her field. Her niece Lucy, who holds Scarpetta in high regard, comes into the story early. Lucy is young, technically very advanced (this is the 1990s) and has the same headstrong drives as Scarpetta. They are striking characters, and slightly daunting together.
Essentially ‘Cruel & Unusual’ is about Dr. Kay Scarpetta and how she sees the world. There are, of course, other sub-texts running throughout the story. But Cornwell is focused here on the drive, the sense of ambition Scarpetta has, as well as bringing out the sense of family and caring she has for a select few. She is shown to be relentless in the pursuit of wrongdoing, standing opposed to the system that employs her, as well as the State Governor at the top of the food chain who seeks her resignation.
The reader can see in ‘Cruel & Unusual’ that Lucy will become a stronger player in future Scarpetta novels. As well, Detective Marino comes to the fore as a strong supporting character. But really, this book is all about Dr. Kay Scarpetta and the astounding character that she really is – imaginative, methodical in practice, intuitive in thought, loyal and absolutely unstoppably stubborn.
The author engaged me here from the first page, and held my interest throughout. I will definitely read more of Patricia Cornwell.
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Excerpts from the novel:
HUMAN CONDITION – I supposed it would always intrigue me that poetry and cruelty could reside in the same heart.
MOOD – The moon was a shaving of ice melting in the slate-gray sky, cars in the parking lots dirty from road salt and frigid winter rains. The early morning was stark and without color, the wind sharp like a slap, and I observed all this more keenly because of the nature of my business here. Had the temperature suddenly risen forty degrees and the sun begun to blaze I do not think I could have felt warm.
BACKGROUND – I was a physician with a law degree. I had been trained to know what gave life and what took it, what was right and what was wrong. Then experience had become my mentor, wiping its feet on that pristine part of myself that was idealistic and analytical. It is disheartening when a thinking person is forced to admit that many clichés are true. There is no justice on this earth.
AGEING – Parkinson’s disease is when the machine shakes violently just before it conks out, as if it knows what is ahead and protests the only way it can.
PROTECTION – “Doc” – Marino met my eyes – “you are driven compared to anyone, and most people can’t figure you out. You don’t exactly walk around with your heart on your sleeve. In fact, you can come across as someone who don’t have feelings. You’re so damned hard to read that to others who don’t know you, it sometimes appears that nothing gets to you. Other cops, other lawyers, they ask me about you. They want to know what you’re really like, how you can do what you do every day – what the deal is. They see you as somebody who don’t get close to anyone.”
USERY – “The thing about people is, whether you’re sitting on a throne or a hot seat, they’re going to use your position to their advantage. And if there’s no bond between you and them, that just makes it all the easier for them to try and get what they want without giving a rat’s ass about what happens to you.”
CHANGE – I did not think I could ever live in Miami again. The change of seasons was like the phases of the moon, a force that pulled me and shifted my point of view. I needed. The full with the new and the nuances in between, days to be short and cold in order to appreciate spring mornings.
– Derryll White once wrote books but now chooses to read and write about them. When not reading he writes history for the web at www.basininstitute.org.
