Black Notice (Scarpetta) - Softcover

Cornwell, Patricia

3.91

41,531 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 075152543X ISBN 13: 9780751525434

Publisher: Sphere, 2000

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An intriguing Dr Kay Scarpetta novel which will take Kay an ocean's breadth away from home. The case begins when a cargo ship arriving at Richmond, Virginia's Deep Water Terminal from Belgium is discovered to be transporting a locked, sealed container holding the decomposed remains of a stowaway. The post mortem performed by the Chief Medical Examiner, Kay Scarpetta, initially reveals neither a cause of death nor an identification. But the victim's personal effects and an odd tattoo take Scarpetta on a hunt for information that leads to Interpol's headquarters in Lyon, where she receives critical instructions: go to the Paris morgue to receive secret evidence and then return to Virginia to carry out a mission. It is a mission that could ruin her career.
In a story which crosses international borders, BLACK NOTICE puts Dr Kay Scarpetta directly in harm's way and places her and those she holds dear at mortal risk.
For more on Patricia Cornwell and her books visit her website at
www.patricia-cornwell.com

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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:

Cornwell's books run on high octane fuel, a cocktail of adrenalin and fear. BLACK NOTICE is no exception (THE TIMES)

BLACK NOTICE is undoubtedly her best book for some time: not only because of some excellent scalpel work, but mainly because it is not so much about crime as about Scarpetta. (EVENING STANDARD)

She's a wonderful writer. (DAILY MAIL)

Imitators now abound, but - pathologically speaking - nobody does it like Cornwell (LITERARY REVIEW)

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