The Last Precinct (Kay Scarpetta) - Hardcover

Cornwell, Patricia

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0399146253 ISBN 13: 9780399146251

Publisher: Penguin, 2000

Synopsis

Attracting unwanted attentions when she is mandated to research the four-hundred-year-old murder of a Jamestown, Virginia, settler, Kay Scarpetta finds enemies among those she is sworn to protect. 1,000,000 first printing. Lit Guild & Doubleday Main.

About this title

Review

What is peculiarly impressive about Patricia Cornwell's new addition to her popular series about the pathologist Kay Scarpetta, The Last Precinct, is that it is a book in which everything is up for grabs and all is at stake. Murders we thought settled for good in previous books, with guilt allocated and people arrested or killed, suddenly come bubbling to the surface again. Kay finds herself accused of the killing of difficult Deputy Police Chief Diane Bray, and of framing the deformed psychopath who killed Diane and burst into Kay's home with murderous intent. Even the hideous death of Kay's lover Benton, several books ago, turns out to have been more complicated than we thought. Kay finds herself in jeopardy several times over with her headstrong lesbian niece, her only entirely reliable ally. This is a book in which Cornwell takes her heroine into new areas--we get the same amount of complicated forensic lore, but there is a new personal urgency to it, a sense that detection is not a game. Kay's relationships with colleagues have always been prickly, but here they become more problematic than ever before; Cornwell's admirers will be pleased by this, her most tense and nervy book for years. --Roz Kaveney This review refers to the hardcover edition of this title.

Review

'Cornwell is the queen of the forensic thriller.' (The Mail on Sunday)

'This book is classically constructed, moves logically along an absorbing plot line, creates enough tension to make it a page-turner, and packs a smashing surprise denouement.' (The Scotsman)

'As always the forensic detail is fascinating.' (The Daily Express)

'Cornwell has written an elegy to the way in which we create and destroy our own worlds. And when she is this good, she is hard to beat.' (New Statesman)

'Ignites on the first page ... Cornwell twists escalating violence, unrelenting tension and growing paranoia into a thick rope of horror and unfolding conspiracy. No one depicts the human capability for evil better than she ... Cornwell has created a character so real, so compelling, so driven that this reader has to remind herself regularly that Scarpetta is just a product of an author’s imagination.' (USA Today)

'Plots within plots, fraught atmosphere and unrelenting suspense keep readers on tenterhooks while one trap after another springs under unwary feet. Cunningly designed, ingeniously laid out, composed with Cornwellian skill, this far-from-the-Last Precinct is a model of the art.' (Los Angeles Times)

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0399146253
• ISBN 13: 9780399146251
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 449