2005 Year in Review

Trace

by Patricia Cornwell

This is a book for all of you Kay Scarpetta fans! As usual this is a mystery surrounding an unconfirmed death. Dr. Kay Scarpetta is a doctor and a lawyer and was once the Chief Medical Examiner of Richmond, Virginia. She is called to return to Richmond to solve the death of a fourteen-year-old girl, despite the smallest of pieces of evidence (traces). Her friend, the former Lieutenant, Dan Marino, accompanies Kay. Both Kay and Marino have “retired” to Florida.

Upon arriving in Richmond, Kay finds her former lab not as organized as it once was and an inept current chief driven by a hidden agenda. Attached to this unsolved murder, is a seemingly unrelated stalker attack upon Kay’s niece, Lucy, who lives in Florida. Thus, there are two stories, (mysteries), happening at once which will twist and lead to each other.

The fourteen-year-old girl in Virginia appears to have died of natural causes because nothing can be found on her body to suggest otherwise. In Florida, the stalker enters Lucy’s house and attacks her houseguest. He also seems connected to other crimes. Through painstaking research of the smallest pieces of evidence, not only is the cause of the young girl’s death found, but also the deaths of others.

This book is not a “bang, bang, shoot’em up” mystery. The mystery in this book is provided by the clues after the death as the medical team and a retired policeman travel between Virginia and Florida in search of a twisted killer. Dr. Kay Scarpetta makes the dead speak!

I have read all her books and have enjoyed each of them: Postmortem, Blow Fly, The Last Precinct, Cruel and Unusual. Patricia Cornwell is not only an established author, but helped create the Virginia Institute of Forensic Science and Medicine, the first forensic training facility of its kind in the nation and serves as its chairman.

by Anne Frame, Guest Columnist
January 31, 2005