Black Notice: Scarpetta (Book 10) - Softcover

Cornwell, Patricia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0425225453 ISBN 13: 9780425225455

Publisher: Berkley Books, 2008

Synopsis

In this #1 New York Times bestseller Dr. Kay Scarpetta is on a deadly mission that will pull her in two opposite directions: toward protecting her career or toward the truth...

Remains were all that was left of the stowaway. He arrived in Richmond's Deep Water Terminal--the ghastly cargo of a ship from Belgium. The decomposed body gives Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta no clues to its identity--or the cause of death. But an odd tattoo soon leads her on an international search to Interpol's headquarters in Lyon, France--and towards a confrontation with one of the most savage killers of her career...

About this title

Review:

The postmortem is in--Black Notice, the 10th in Patricia Cornwell's Scarpetta series--is a gore- splattered, intensely exciting read.

As winter grips Richmond, Virginia, an air of sombreness pervades chief medical examiner Kay Scarpetta's world. Her beloved niece Lucy is involved in a dangerous undercover police operation in Miami, and auntie fears for her life. A tyrannical new deputy chief, Diane Bray, wants to get Kay's department under her jurisdiction. Meanwhile, back at the office, someone has tinkered with the e-mail system, stealing Kay's identity and sending off slanderous and hurtful messages. Emotionally battered, Scarpetta fears she is going insane. Or, could it be that someone is deliberately sowing this harvest of sorrow?

Despite her personal problems, Scarpetta is still the reigning diva at the department of death. She is sent to investigate the purified remains of a man found inside a container ship, "eyes bulged froglike, and the scalp and beard were sloughing off with the outer layer of darkening skin." Kay finds strange, animal-like hairs on the man's clothing--the same hairs that she discovers on a murdered store clerk a few days later. In actuality, the bizarre killings extend well beyond Virginia; whoever killed the Richmond victims also butchered people in France. Kay and police captain Pete Marino are whisked off to Paris where they must collect top-secret information from a Paris morgue, and avoid becoming victims themselves.

This macabre tome is the stuff that classic Scarpetta tales are made of: creepy but compulsive autopsy scenes, plentiful plot twists and the compelling, if slightly more vulnerable, chief medical examiner herself. --Naomi Gesinger

Review:

Praise for Black Notice

"Brainteasing...[a] hair-raising tale with a French twist."--People

"The author's darkest and perhaps best."--San Francisco Examiner

"When [Scarpetta's] in one of her cut-'em-up moods, you want to follow her anywhere...a series that keeps picking up velocity."--The New York Times

"The forensic sequences boom with authority; the brief action sequences explode on the page...A thunderhead of disquietude hangs over this compulsively readable novel, sometimes loosing storms of suspense; but to Cornwell's considerable credit, the unease arises ultimately not from the steady potential for violence, but from a more profound horror: the vulnerability of a good woman like Kay to a world beset by the corrupt, the cruel, the demonic."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Cornwell's latest villain is a wonderful creation...[Her] detail-laden descriptions of autopsies, gleaned from her work experience on the staff of a Virginia chief medical examiner, offers the same kind of unique insight Tom Clancy provides concerning high-tech weaponry...Black Notice is a pleasant step forward...the villain is cracker-jack, the chase is exciting...Good for Patricia Cornwell, and even better for her many fans."--Fort Worth Star-Telegram

"It is fascinating to watch Scarpetta and her supporting cast...become more and more themselves...especially in such a brilliantly paced adventure as this one."--Kirkus Reviews

About this edition

• Publisher: Berkley Books
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0425225453
• ISBN 13: 9780425225455
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 544