Unnatural Exposure

This was the first Patricia Cornwell Scarpetta book that I read - Now I'm hooked. Patricia Cornwell draws you into Scarpetta's life, personality, and emotions, while still keeping you guessing at the mystery!

Good mystery, especially for someone who likes science/anatomy

Better than the previous. But only marginally. Personal relations with the interesting people (Marino and Lucy, not Wesley) lack punch. Crime was interesting and the trail to the solution was okay. Ending was a little abrupt, but not as stupid as in the last book.

I’m just not sure what to think about this series. I like forensics angle, and the mystery, but these later books are just so bogged down in the sturm und drang of Kay’s life. Oh, the malaise! Kay Scarpetta has the angst of your average 15 year old girl, and it’s starting to get in the way.

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The story here is interesting and does make you wonder about what would have to happen if a disease such as smallpox were to be used as a weapon, and the final confrontation was good, but I found the "who" in the "whodunnit" rather unsatisfying. Part of what makes a mystery satisfying is the discovery of whether or not you are right in your suspicions, but in this book there really was no way to figure it out ahead of time. Yet, I keep reading them.

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For several reasons this book left me unsatisfied. There were some important clues that led to the solution were quite blatantly ignored. In the end the original crime isn't solved i.e. serial killer isn't caught and there were some discrepancies I didn't understand: how can she get the flue after

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10 days in quaratine? How would she have caught it? And why did they all ignore the fact that you need medical equipment and knowledge in order to pull off the crime.

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A very quick read and one where I actually didn't anticipate who the killer was. I wish she'd delved a little more into Wingo's death. She alluded to knowing him for years, but I believe he made only one other appearance. I hope the closure wrt Mark leads to some closure with Benton. Wonder if the

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original case will ever be solved

AOL makes its appearance. OMG email!

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Kay Scarpetta begins an autopsy on a limbless and headless torso, but the torso has a rash like smallpox. Kay and her employee Wingo have been exposed. Then more cases appear on the island of Tangier. An epidemic threat impels Kay and the FBI to find the cause. Kay realizes that she loves Benton,

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but she cannot live with him on a day-to-day basis. Lucy loves her friend who also works for the FBI. But if the FBI discovers this secret, both women could lose their job. Pete Marino does not seem as important in this novel. As usual, Cornwell does a good job with research and details, but the killings that began the story are not solved. The killer apprehended is not the killer being sought at the beginning of the story.

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Not a bad whodunit, but the perp was introduced in the last dew minutes....personal foul, 15 yard penalty!

This is a solid mystery in the Cornwell tradition, although if you’ve read a lot of her (as I have), she may be wearing thin on you by now (as she is on me). I like following the ongoing developments of her four main characters: Kay Scarpetta; her lover FBI agent; her niece Lucy; and her

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curmudgeonly police detective friend. But the mysteries seem to be getting less and less believable as the series rolls on. Maybe it’s time for Cornwell to move in a different direction. (And she does aggravate a major pet peeve of mine – overreliance on the “and” conjunction, resulting in convulted and nonsensical sentences.)

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a book out of the cornwell machine. predictable, fast paced, easy beach reading or while waiting at an airport.

Kay Scarpetta is investigating not only murder in this eighth volume of her series, but also a possibly intentional outbreak of a pox-like virus. In fact, she herself might have been exposed!
My impressions:
-I think it's ridiculously sad that one of Kay's staff or colleagues has to die in every

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book.
-It's also pretty far-fetched that Kay, as the chief medical examiner for the state, has a personal face-to-face encounter with the killer at the end of every book. I don't expect my fictional entertainment to be exactly like real life, but this particular trope is getting pretty old.
-Kay spends some time in quarantine after thinking she might be exposed to the virus and she's not a good patient. She snaps at people who are just trying to help and she's super bored, which is, as you can imagine is also boring to read about.
-Previous to this volume, there was a three book arc in which Scarpetta was chasing the same killer around. This seems to be happening again, as there is another mystery began in this book which is not solved by the end of it.
-I'm getting pretty impatient with the relationship between Kay and Benton. There's no longer any obstructions (i.e. his wife) so, there shouldn't be any reason for them to stay apart, but Kay's prevaricating. Fortunately, now that Lucy is older, her relationship with Kay seems to be improving.
-I enjoyed learning more about viruses and quarantine procedures. Cornwell has definitely done her research here. It's just mystifying sometimes how she can be so accurate and factual about certain things like procedures and time-lines, but then feels like she has to manufacture suspense and manipulate her characters into doing things that seem out of character for them to do in order to create relationship conflicts.
I've read these first eight books pretty much back to back...I think I'm pretty much Scarpetta'd out at this point. I'm going to take a break for a while and revisit this series again in the future.

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If your in the mood for a great suspense book then put this on on the list!

Vintage Kay Scarpetta with the usual cast of characters--Marino, Lucy, etc.

I coming to the point where a one time enjoyable series is coming to an end. The plots are getting far-fetched, are heroine Dr. Kay Scarpetta is becoming one of the most brilliant know it al nothing phases me, except Wesley & Mark, in short she has become such an everything person to envy, she has

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become a total hoke to me.

This latest caper is almost a 'Kay saves the world' thing. A human torso begins as a simple morbid murder but ends up being just the opening act of a pox virus that will end human life as we know it if Scarpetta doesn't overcome her own exposure (oh no not Kay!?!? Will she die. SPOILER: she doesn't). Her sweet clone niece Lucy is once again the FBI's super brain agent and its to the point the where the world holds its breath for Kay and Lucy to save us. Then there is the ever so sweet Kay male assistant who dies but not before whimpering like a little boy only so Kay can be a nurturing mommy to him.

To keep things humble Kay has the drooling dog Officer Marino and the Golden Retriever FBI profiler Benton following her to the ends of the earth. Marino would give his life for loving Kay who one senses may fulfill his desires of loving him if he were in fact the only man left on the face of the earth. FBI MAN Benton, this guy is such a totally a trained pup Kay should think of making them a circus act. She treats him like what dogs leave in the dirt but he is ever so dedicated and loving to her that most ladies I know would tell this guy get a spine then will talk

I wish Cornwell would just keep Kay's character to a good or even a great medical examiner investigating mysterious deaths and forego making her the joke she's become.. And before you go the I'm a male chauvinist route my lovely bride in many aspects oversees many things in our household because she does it much better than I could but she doesn't 't have to prove it with great exclamations. I'd like Dr. Kay Scarpetta if she was an intelligent and strong willed woman and not some super woman on steroids.

I may browse ahead to some future review to see if Patricia Cornwell tunes it down a tad but if not I much rather go through the alphabet again with Kinsey Malone

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Kay Scarpetta is starting to get on my nerves

I read this one in one day, because once the first pox victim showed up, I realized I had read this one before.

The beginning of the book focuses on the hunt for a serial killer who dismembers his victims. This killer has been working both in Ireland and in the United States. Dr. Scarpetta has been

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looking at the evidence from both the countries. About half way through the book, a new victim shows up who has been dismembered, but not quite in the same way, and also with possible small pox lesions on her body. This leads to the question of a copycat killer, or has the original killer changed his m.o.?

I guess I am not quite clear on if the same person was doing all the killings, or if the small pox victims were killed by one person, and the original dismembered victims killed by another. By the end of the book, when the killer is caught, I understand the reasoning for the small pox killings. But why all the previous dismemberments? That wasn't super clear to me.

Even with some plot flaws, I enjoyed this book very much. Biomedical terrorism is a very scary subject, and it is easy to imagine it happening now. The pace of the book was brisk, and the story was compelling. This is one of the best Sarpetta books.

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Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta has been investigating a series of murders in which the victims' bodies have been decapitated and dismembered. But when the latest unidentified torso turns up, the M.O. now appears to be very different, and the consequences may be disastrous.

This is actually book 8 in

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a series, none of which I had previously read, but while it did leave me feeling like I'd come in in the middle of the story as far as developments in the main character's personal life go, Cornwell is diligent enough about bringing new readers up to speed that I had no trouble with it, even though I'm usually not a fan of coming into series in the middle.

I read this one only because it was given to me by a mystery-loving friend who thought it seemed like the sort of mystery story that science-nerd me would like, because there's a fair amount of medical science in it and the investigation takes a scientific approach. And while I'd hardly call it the most science-oriented book I've ever read -- hey, I read a lot of SF -- I did find some of the forensic details quite interesting.

Said friend also described Scarpetta as a "strong female character." That, unfortunately, is a phrase that now too often seems to either be used in a way that's so vague it means almost nothing, or else reserved only for female characters who are very limited and stereotyped varieties of "strong." But I'm pleased to report that the phrase fits Scarpetta in the good way: she's an intelligent, respected professional, but she also has flaws, and she feels very human, rather than being anybody's wish-fulfillment idea of a strong woman. I liked her.

As for the plot, it's nothing particularly groundbreaking, but I did find it engaging enough, and, pleasantly, it turned out to be exactly the kind of thing I was in the mood to read. I only have one real complaint about it, but unfortunately it's a significant complaint for this kind of story. The ending, I felt, was entirely too abrupt and not really very satisfying. Especially as, now that I think about it, it does leave a pretty serious dangling plot thread. So that was a little disappointing, but despite it, I've come out with a reasonably good impression of Cornwell, and wouldn't be adverse to picking up another of her novels sometime.

I will add that this particular work, having come out in 1999, now feels kind of dated. Not in a bad way that made it more difficult or uncomfortable to read. But I can't help finding it amusing that it includes careful explanations of what the internet is, or how it's possible to scan a photograph and e-mail it to someone. And the story also includes several gay and lesbian characters. They're treated by both the author and the main character with acceptance and sympathy, but reading this in 2019, it's hard not to find it weird how both author and character seem to feel the need to address the subject of their love lives with a sort of coy delicacy, and the way it's taken for granted that it could be disastrous for any of them if their employers found out does kind of bring home just how much some things have changed. On the other hand, the fact that the novel is set during a federal government shutdown thanks to congress not being able to pass a budget is a depressingly familiar detail.

Rating: I'm giving this one a 3.5/5, although I probably would have gone up to a slightly generous 4/5 if the ending had been stronger.

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How a breakout of a deadly disease that may be weaponized in a war would be handled by the federal authorities.

Unnatural Exposure is another biological thriller featuring Dr. Kay Scarpetta, the infamous M.E. for the state of Virginia. This story features an insane scientist threatening to unleash a new killer strain of the smallpox virus on the world. The narrative occasionally gets bogged down in detailed

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descriptions of military procedures/equipment when the USAMRIID is called upon to help quarantine the infected but quickly picks up at the end when Kay singlehandedly apprehends the killer.

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Once again Dr Kay Scarpetta, Chief Medical Examiner for the Commonwealth of Virginia, finds herself up against it. Already overworked, and fighting the impact of the furlough imposed on federal employees while Congress and the White House, she has been reviewing evidence that suggests a serial

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killer is at work in the state.

As the novel opens, she is in Ireland, presenting lectures to international colleagues, although she has also been reviewing the headless and limbless corpses of five victims of a killer who may now have relocated to Virginia. Satisfied that the perpetrator may be the same in all the cases under review, she returns home, and liaises with her regular investigatory partners, Captain Pete Marino, head of homicide in the Virginia Police Department, and Benton Wesley, the FBI’s senior profiler. Meanwhile, one of the Medical Examiners in her state-wide team, contacts her in a panic, convinced that one of the corpses he had recently been called to review may have died of Smallpox. It gradually emerges that these two unfolding horror stories may be connected.

Cornwell manages all of these plot elements fairly tightly, and certainly manages to build up the suspense. Unfortunately I felt that there were too many recurring elements with which we have grown all too familiar: a bigoted and narrow-minded lead investigator with his own agenda and deep-rooted (yet never properly explained) grudge against Scarpetta and anyone connected with her.

As with a few of her previous books, I felt a degree of frustration that someone as capable of writing a good, gripping thriller, should produce something as frequently clumsy as this book is. Cornwell’s first four or five novels were excellently plotted and constructed, with watertight and convincing stories, and highly plausible characters. Somewhere along the line, however, she seemed to lose some of her plot management skills, leaving subsequent books with a tendency to lose their focus.

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