Book Review

By Derryll White

Patricia Cornwell (2000).  The Last Precinct

It is always so comfortable when an author opens with food – evocative, colourful, tasty, tactile, known. And Patricia Cornwell immediately ties food to language, therefore culture. We know we are dealing with Italian as well as American insights. She also writes in the present tense so I feel as if I am brought into her kitchen. So, right at the beginning, on the first page, I am comfortable with this book.

Now as I take my first sip of Casillero del Diablo shiraz wine and sit back, will the book live up to the anticipations I have?

These are well-developed characters. Dr. Kay Scarpetta, the lead in Cornwell’s series, is the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Chief Medical Examiner, and an internationally-known police scientist. Rough, bluff, falling apart Captain Peter Marino with long time connections to Scarpetta, is the head of Richmond’s violent crime unit ‘the A Squad’. Scarpetta’s niece Lucy has a long history with her aunt who essentially raised her. Brilliant, belligerent, a consummate risk-taker, ATF federal agent Lucy is at the cusp of change. And further reading shows so is Scarpetta.

Cornwell masterfully works the ever-evolving technical aspects (such as AFIS, the fingerprint identification software) into the dialogue and scene development.  The reader learns a lot about what a medical examiner’s office does, and how that fits into the overall case development in the heads of policemen. And it is learned without any sense of tedium or being instructed or lectured to, simply part of the story development. Cornwell is masterful in her field, and she is also very successful in imbuing Scarpetta with a sense of soul, a sense of being vulnerable, humane, caring in the face of danger and loss.

There is intensity to this writing, a psychological maturity that is extremely challenging. It is as if the author is sharing herself with the reader through the character of Kay Scarpetta. Cornwell moves adroitly from deepest thoughts about the ills of society – sexism, gender hatred, cultures of violence – to simple beautiful scenes of the natural world. It is not jarring, rather unfolds as one’s mind does quickly down many paths simultaneously, neurons firing and welcoming challenge. She is that kind of writer – fun, unpredictable, incisive.

I enjoyed this book a lot. The downside is that the ending is rather weak, given the strength and gusto of the body of the text. One is, however, clearly left with the impression that the story simply continues. That brings me to my other slightly negative comment, the fact that the Scarpetta series is well-evolved by this point and the reader would be well served to start at the beginning with Postmortem (1990) and Body of Evidence (1991).

– 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.

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