Book Of The Dead by Patricia Cornwell (2007)

This is the 15th installment of the Kay Scarpetta Series
Started: November 8, 2007
Ended: December 11, 2007
Synopsis: The "book of the dead" is the morgue log, a ledger in which all cases are entered by hand. For Kay Scarpetta, however, it is about to take on a new meaning. Fresh from her bruising battle with a psychopath in Florida, Scarpetta decides it's time for a change of pace, not only personally and professionally but geographically. Moving to the historic city of Charleston, South Carolina, she opens a unique private forensic pathology practice (Coastal Forensic Pathology Associates), one in which she and her colleagues-including Pete Marino and her niece, Lucy-offer expert crime-scene investigation and autopsy services to communities lacking local access to modern, competent death investigation technology.
It seems like an ideal situation, until the new battles start-with local politicians, with entrenched interests, with someone whose covert attempts at sabotage are clearly meant to run Scarpetta out of town. And that's before the murders and other violent deaths even begin.
A young man from a well-known family jumps off a water tower. A woman is found ritualistically murdered in her multimillion-dollar beach home. The body of an abused young boy is discovered dumped in a desolate marsh. Meanwhile, in distant New England, problems with a prominent patient at a Harvard-affiliated psychiatric hospital begin to hint at interconnections that are as hard to imagine as they are horrible.
Kay Scarpetta has dealt with many brutal and unusual crimes before, but never a string of them as baffling, or as terrifying, as the ones confronting her now. Before she is through, that book of the dead will contain many names-and the pen may be poised to write in her own.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>WARNING-SPOILERS AHEAD<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Characters:
Kay Scarpetta: Forensic pathologist; consultant for International Investigative Response (IIR); now lives in Charleston, NC in a two story, 19th century carriage house for the last two years; short blond hair; wears very little makeup; has a striking and strong appearance; engaged to Benton
Benton Wesley: Forensic psychologist at the Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital; consultant for IIR; lives separately from Scarpetta in Boston, MA; proposed to Scarpetta, giving her his great-grandmother's antique, thin platinum band of diamonds; detests Dr. Self yet allows her to participate in his psychological study
IIR: Special branch of the European Network of Forensic Science Institutes (ENFSI)
Drew Martin: DEAD: American tennis star; 16 y/o female, found murdered in Rome by The Sandman; body was mutilated (pieces of skin were removed as well as her eyes, which were filled in with sand and eyelids were glued shut); exhibited signs of depression and instability; abused alcohol; revealed to have had an affair with her tennis coach, Gianni; fired her coach because Dr. Self manipulated her into doing such
Captain Ottorino Pomo: Physician, not a detective; extraordinarily conceited and argumentative; known as the Sherlock Holmes of Rome; flirts shamelessly with Scarpetta in front of Benton; comes to Charleston to help capture The Sandman; saves Scarpetta in a parking garage when attacked by The Sandman
Dr. Marilyn Self: TV talk-show psychiatrist; Marino used to be her patient back in Florida several years ago; manipulative; hates Scarpetta and tries to discredit her at every given chance; taking a sabbatical in Belmont, MA at the McLean Hospital; revealed that her "sabbatical" was actually her fleeing town after she received a picture of an abducted Drew; was terribly upset about email from The Sandman and feared for her life; bipolar but not taking medication; continues to receive emails from The Sandman; received a pic of Lydia Webster in a bathtub filled with cold water & apparently drugged up
Gianni Lupano: DEAD: Drew's tennis coach; has an apartment in the same building that Rose lives in; drives a black Porsche; attended Holly Webster's funeral service; committed suicide by jumping out of a window in his penthouse apartment
Pete Marino: Scarpetta's death investigator; has not taken Scarpetta's marriage proposal very well (i.e. drinking heavily & resentful); mid-50's; shaves-off what is left of his hair; typically wears black motorcycle clothing & big boots; wears a gaudy necklace with a single silver dollar; obsessive weight-lifter; one evening when he was drunk he assaulted Scarpetta; revealed that his girlfriend, Shandy, was making him take a testosterone supplement that increased his aggressive behavior significantly; ashamed of his behavior he disappears; whereabouts and whether he is even still alive at book's end is unknown
Lucy Farinelli: Scarpetta's niece; Scarpetta's system administrator (IT); lesbian; strawberry blond hair; obsessive about her body, food and working out; extremely fit; goes to McLean 1-2 times a year to get a brain scan; revealed to have a benign pituitary macroadenoma (brain tumor); threatens Marino to stay away from Scarpetta and herself or she will kill him
Shandy Snook: Marino's white-trash girlfriend that he picked up at a bar; exotic and dark skinned; has a rich father that apparently did not leave her a dime; Lucy discovered that she makes regular deposits but does not know where she gets the money from; turns out Dr. Self had been paying her to fuck with Marino & Scarpetta; revealed that Shandy had a relationship with Will Rambo and they had a son; believed to have abused & killed her son
Lucious Meddick: DEAD: Hearse driver; one of three brothers that owns & runs Meddicks' Funeral Home in Charleston, NC; mistakenly tries to deliver a dead body to Scarpetta's house instead of her office/morgue, upsetting her; skinny and dark-skinned; wears a plastic orthodontic retainer on his teeth; wears a rubber band around his right wrist; was at the crime scene where the little black boy's body was recovered; resentful that Scarpetta does not use his service; Lucious body was found near Lydia Webster's body in a desolate area of Hilton Head; it is believed that he was killed (multiple stab wounds) behind Scarpetta's house in the alleyway by The Sandman; apparently Lucious was in the alleyway spying on Scarpetta when he ran into The Sandman who was also there spying
Jess: Runs the Kick 'N Horse biker bar where Marino hangs out; deaf; reads lips
The Sandman/Will Rambo: Contacted Dr. Self via email and established a somewhat patient-doctor relationship through email correspondences; he is home from Iraq, where he had been profoundly traumatized; claimed to have watched Drew on Dr. Self's TV show and said he could feel the young girl's unbearable suffering and would take her pain away; sent a picture to Dr. Self of Drew after he abducted her; father lives in Rome; seems to have a unhealthy relationship with father, who looks down at him; revealed that Dr. Self is his mother and Dr. Paulo Maroni is his father; it is believed that Drew met Will at Dr. Self's apartment and they either traveled to Rome together or he became fixated on her and followed her there
Jackie Minor: Benton's research assistant
Unidentified little black boy: DEAD: Body found in a marsh in Hilton Head; covered with bruises; 5-10 y/o; revealed to be the son of Shandy Snook and Will Rambo; believed to have been killed by his mother
Book of The Dead: Large black morgue log; legal document; has absolutely no role in this story
Rose: Scarpetta's secretary; 73 y/o; attractive, imposing figure; impeccably dressed, usually with her white hair pulled back into a French twist; kept-up story of having a severe flu until Scarpetta discovered she has stage 3 lung cancer and is dying
Dr. Paulo Maroni: Brilliant; wealthy; runs the McLean Hospital; also has a private practice in Rome; while in Italy- speaks with his friend and colleague-Captain Pomo about the Sandman; Dr. Self had referred the Sandman to him; revealed to have had an affair with Marilyn Self way back; she became pregnant with Will Rambo; suspected that his son was behind the killings but did not alert the authorities; confesses to Benton about his son and his relationship to Marilyn; quits the McLean Hospital and stays in Rome to avoid prosecution
Bulrush Ulysses S. Grant (aka Bull): Found little black boy's body when he was fishing; dark-skinned; built like a football player, in fact bigger than Marino; well-mannered; asks Scarpetta for a job as a handyman; was savagely slashed up across face and arms from an attack of a unidentified assailant; Scarpetta hires him to be her handyman and gardener; finds a gun and a necklace in the alley behind Scarpetta's house
Dr. Nathan Day: Lucy's neuroendocrinologist in LA
Gladys Self: Hates and despises her daughter, Marilyn; Benton contacts for information after Marilyn volunteers for a scientific research project he is conducting at McLean
Mrs. Grimball: Scarpetta's unpleasant neighbor; always looking out her window; has Bull arrested for trespassing, even though he was never on her property but Scarpetta's; Scarpetta threatens to burn her house down if she ever sticks her nose into her business or bothers her employees again
Roger: Will's friend/fellow solider that died when they served over in Iraq
Ed: Rose's doorman
Henry Hollings: Local coroner; Scarpetta believes he is trying to run her out of town by hiring a local biker thug to scare her; very well spoken with old southern charm and manners-however Scarpetta sees through this facade and knows he is a greedy, unctuous, full of self-importance bastard; turns out he is a gentleman that has no ill-intentions for Scarpetta; secretly dating Rose
Madelisa Dooley: While walking on the beach with her husband, comes across a stray puppy that has blood on it; goes to the nearest beach house to see if she can find the owner to the Basset Hound puppy; appears someone is cooking out - yet no one answers her; she goes inside the house and finds a bloody, dead woman in the tub and runs; later when the cops have been called, the house was found empty and wiped clean; worries about her finances and wishes she was better off; overweight, heavy-lidded eyes and could use a good dentist; hides the puppy from the police in fear that they will take it away from her and put it down
Ashley Dooley: Madelisa's husband; cheap, yet spends money on electronic toys for himself
Stephen Siegal: Proctologist; Shandy gets the prescription for the testosterone supplement from him
Holly Webster: DEAD: Young girl from a wealthy family that accidentally drowned in her pool in Hilton Head
Lydia Webster: DEAD: Holly's mother; appeared on Dr. Self's talk show not even 2 months after Holly's death; relationship with husband unraveled and they were getting divorced; became extremely depressed and despondent; would drink all day and chain-smoke in her beach mansion in Hilton Head; would pull her own hair out; neglected the puppy she had bought Holly; the Sandman breaks into her beach house, attacks and kills her; her dead bloated body is found in a remote area of Hilton Head; revealed she was having an affair with Gianni Lupano; while they were upstairs fucking, Holly had fallen into the pool and drowned because she was unsupervised
Investigator Tommy Turkington: Works for the Beaufort County Sheriff's Department; investigated Holly's drowning; has a second job as an EMT
Becky: Chief of CSI at the Beaufort County Sheriff's Dept; has a second job as an EMT
Do-Rag Man: Name unknown; biker that wears a do-rag; in cahoots with Shandy (they were also fucking) in trying to harass Scarpetta; has an accident on his bike and cracks his head open; hospitalized in critical condition; Lucy had sabotaged his bike so that he would have an accident
Dr. Franz: Nuclear metallurgical engineer; Scarpetta visits him in Knoxville to use the largest scanning electron microscope in the world; brings him the broken window frame from Lydia Websters beach house
Aaron: Scarpetta's Lab Director; forensic specialist

My Review: First off I have to make the point that the "official book synopsis" above is false and misleading on several counts:
1. What local politicians were trying to sabotage Scarpetta? I would not consider Dr. Self, Shandy or even Lucious as politicians, and nobody else was mentioned nor alluded to??
2. "A young man from a well-known family jumps off a water tower"? No water tower and the only person jumping was Gianni Lupano from his penthouse apartment. Gianni was a tennis coach and no mention of his family and whether they were well-known was mentioned??
3."A woman is found ritualistically murdered in her multimillion-dollar beach home"? Lydia Webster was not found in her beach house, but several miles away in a desolate area in Hilton Head. Her body ravaged by maggots, crabs and birds.

I think this synopsis better fits the actual story you get:
Soon after relocating to Charleston, S.C., to launch a private forensics lab, Scarpetta is asked to consult on the murder of U.S. tennis star Drew Martin, whose mutilated body was found in Rome. Contradictory evidence leaves Scarpetta, the Italian carabinieri and Scarpetta's lover, forensic psychologist Benton Wesley, stumped. But when she discovers unsettling connections between Martin's murder, the body of an unidentified South Carolina boy and her old nemesis, the maniacal psychiatrist Dr. Marilyn Self, Scarpetta encounters a killer as deadly as any she's ever faced.

OK-now to my review. I really wanted to like this book but Patricia Cornwell continues her downhill slide in this latest Kay Scarpetta novel. All the characters I have grown to care about in the earlier books - Scarpetta, Benton, Marino, Rose and Lucy - continue to revel in anger, jealousy, pettiness, and self-loathing. The writing is turgid and repetitive, the conversations between characters is often sophomoric, and the third person narrative only serves to push the characters away. I miss the style and feelings evoked by the earlier books of this series. I miss the scenes with Scarpetta cooking. I miss the atmosphere of her elegant and vast mansion, now crammed into a tiny two story cottage house. Yes, I will continue to read any future installments, but only with the hope that Ms. Cornwell will return to her former glory
Book Score: 7.5/10