I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
T. S. ELIOT, The Waste Land, 1922
Kay Scarpetta never mentions what occurred in Connecticut, but as soon as I started reading, I knew... I want YOU to know too, because if you are not acquainted with this particular school shooting, you need to know! America breeds murder...in my opinion... What else can we believe when the federal government has refused over decades to change our gun laws--or even have them, it seems... Certainly, it has led to the "great divide" now, hopefully, getting smaller, as people begin to see just what corruption and constant avoidance of the truth leads to... But, I have to sometimes wonder, is it too late? BTW, did you ever really think about that it is and has been always, men, who start wars??? Even with a number of female leaders of countries...
This book opens with Kay being home, claiming she has the flu, which she might have had as well, but I thought immediately that she was still dealing with the stress... Because she had been in Connecticut... And, with her background and experience, she chose to offer her services for completion of the many, many autopsies which were required--of the teacher, but, more, of the grade school children! Can you imagine anybody having to be involved in performing death exams on all those children??? I was hooked empathically with Kay from that point on...
During a feverish epiphany I saw the meaning of everything, life the colliding of God particles that make up all matter in the universe and death the absolute reverse of it. When I spiked a temperature of 103.8 it became even clearer, explained simply and eloquently by the hooded man at the foot of my bed. If only I’d written down what he said, the elusive formula for nature giving mass and death taking it away, all of creation since the Big Bang measured by the products of decay. Rust, dirt, sickness, insanity, chaos, corruption, lies, rot, ruin, shed cells, dead cells, atrophy, stenches, sweat, waste, dust to dust, that at a subatomic level interact and create new mass, and this goes on infinitely. I couldn’t see his face but I know it was compelling and kind as he spoke to me scientifically, poetically, backlit by fire that gave off no heat. During moments of astonishing clarity I realized what we mean when we talk of forbidden fruit and original sin, and walking into the light and streets paved in gold, of extraterrestrials, auras, ghosts, and paradise and hell and reincarnation, of being healed or raised from the dead, of coming back as a raven, a cat, a hunchback, an angel. A recycling crystalline in its precision and prismatic beauty was revealed to me. The plan of God the Supreme Physicist, who is merciful, just, and funny. Who is creative. Who is all of us. I saw and I knew. I possessed perfect Truth.
Then life reasserted itself, pulled Truth right out from under me, and I’m still here, held down by gravity. An amnesiac. I can’t recall or share what at last I could explain to devastated people after I’ve taken care of their dead. I’m clinical at best when I answer the questions they ask, always the same ones. Why? Why? Why! How could someone do something like this? I’ve never had a good explanation. But there is one and I knew it fleetingly. What I’ve always wanted to say was on the tip of my tongue, then I came to and what I knew was replaced by the job I’d just done. The unthinkable images no one should ever see. Blood and brass in a hallway lined with bulletin boards decorated for the holidays. And then inside that classroom. The children I couldn’t save. The parents I couldn’t comfort. The reassurances I couldn’t give. Did they suffer? How quick would it have been? It’s the flu doing this, I tell myself. There’s nothing I haven’t seen and can’t deal with and I feel the anger stir, the sleeping dragon within.
“Trust me, you don’t want anybody else taking care of this. There can’t be even one damn thing that gets screwed up,” Marino perseverates and if I’m honest with myself, I’m glad to hear his voice.
~~~
Before I officially began book reviewing, you might say I was hooked on forensics shows that began to be shown on television--CSI was my favorite as it was with millions...and the many offshoots from the first. Certainly Kay Scarpetta deserves to be awarded movie status for her books...
The continuity of characters is what I routinely enjoy in series books. But things have certainly changed since I joined Kay's life through this fantastic series. Marino is still here--but he is no longer working with Scarpetta. He has returned to being a cop with the local police force so he's still actively involved. But there is a new and significant tension between he and Kay...
Plus Kay is married! And her husband is a Special Agent in the FBI... Have to say, that, the noticeable tension that has developed comes through clearly, as they get into an extremely complex storyline that points out that evil can be found just about anywhere greed becomes the main drive for criminals...
Benton, who is a profiler with the Bureau, is away from home, working on murders which have now reached a need to register that a serial killer is on the loose. The interesting twist is that, the murder that Marino has contacted Kay with the statement that she would want to see this one right from the beginning, turned out to have similar characteristics of what was found on the bodies that the FBI is working on... And Kay was the one who made the discovery and reviewed the files on Benton's cases...
Further complications begin when the routine investigation at the state level, headed by Marino with Scarpetta and staff dealing with their parts, begins to contradict what federal records show...
Rapists, muggers, and murderers tend to prefer their victims drunk or drugged. A woman staggering out of a bar alone is a sitting duck.
The police had been contacted when a woman was talking to a friend who had stepped out of a bar to be able to hear/talk on her cell... The caller could hear her talking to somebody else and then was cut off... She was later found...dead... But when Marino came to pick Kay up, it turned into one of those tense moments...
Marino watches me, and I know what he’s concluded. What I went through over the weekend was traumatic and I’m paranoid, and, more to the point, I don’t feel as safe as I did when he worked for me. He wants to believe I feel his absence deeply, that life’s not as settled as it was, and it isn’t. I open a cabinet above the sink. “Well, that’s understandable,” he says. “What I’ve sensed has nothing to do with that, I promise.” I set a can of Sock’s food and a pair of gray nitrile examination gloves on the counter. “Really? You want to tell me why you suddenly think it’s necessary to wear a gun to a crime scene? One you’re going to with me?” He continues to push because he wants to believe I’m scared. Most of all he wants to believe I need him. “You don’t even like guns,” he then says. “It’s not a matter of what I like.” I talk to the rhythm of the can opener cutting through metal. “I also don’t happen to think that guns are something one should have feelings for. Love, hate, like, or dislike should be reserved for people, pets, food. Not firearms.” “Since when do you wear one or even bother taking the trigger lock off?” “How would you know what I bother with? You’re not around me most of the time and not at all lately.” I empty the can into Sock’s bowl as he waits by his mat, his pointed face looking at me. “Well, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I don’t work for you anymore and all of a sudden you arm yourself everywhere.” “I don’t arm myself everywhere but certainly when I’m in and out of the house all hours of the night, here alone,” I reply.
~~~
Finally getting to the location where the body had been found, on the MIT campus, Kay was immediately aware of both the surroundings as well as the body itself. It was immediately clear that the body had been staged... Why? And, thus, the intensive investigative activities began which quickly merged when Kay's niece, Lucy, flies Benton home for his birthday as a surprise for Kay... And things got worse soon thereafter... But, at least, Kay had Benton by her side as things moved forward... Or, actually, Benton had Kay by his side when Benton was suddenly fired at the crime scene by the Special Agent in their area...
After reading all the details and investigative research that had to be done to arrive to the end of the book, I must say I'm curious as to how much of the movie version, will be cut from the full book story. This book is tightly written, with little, if any, fat that can easily be shaved and not have an impact... There is no way to turn pages quickly as you would in a thriller. If you're not paying attention to the investigation, you might as well stop reading, because you'll not realize the full scope and reality of what is being done. I confess I have no idea whether the computer gymnastics Lucy creates or performs is even possible. I kinda hope so since she plays a major role in manner and speed by which the murders were solved and the individual caught and jailed... Wouldn't it be nice to have speed in our legal actions these days?
Kay and Lucy make a wonderful, close team that can only be achieved when love and respect for the other is involved... I love brilliant female characters and these two ably show that Cornwell is able to create some really bad-ass women!
Highly recommended!
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