Patricia Cornwell sold her first novel, Postmortem, in 1990 while working as a computer analyst at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Richmond, Virginia. Postmortem, was the first bona fide forensic thriller. It paved the way for an explosion of entertainment featuring in all things forensic across film, television and literature.
Postmortem would go on to win the Edgar, Creasey, Anthony, and Macavity awards as well as the French Prix du Roman d’Aventure prize – the first book ever to claim all these distinctions in a single year. To date, Cornwell’s books have sold some 100 million copies in thirty-six languages in over 120 countries. She’s authored twenty-nine New York Times bestsellers.
Virginia Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta has a bloody puzzle on her hands: five headless, limbless cadavers in Ireland, plus four similar victims in a landfill back home. Is a serial butcher loose in Virginia? That's what the panicked public thinks, thanks to a local TV reporter who got the leaked news from her boyfriend, Scarpetta's vile rival, Investigator Percy Ring. But the butchered bodies are so many red herrings intended to throw idiots like Ring off the track. Instead of a run-of-the-mill serial killer, we're dealing with a shadowy figure who has plans involving mutant smallpox, mass murder, and messing with Scarpetta's mind by e-mailing her gory photos of the murder scenes, along with cryptic AOL chat-room messages. The coolest innovation: Scarpetta's gorgeous genius niece, Lucy, equips her with a DataGlove and a VPL Eyephone, and she takes a creepy virtual tour of the e-mailed crime scene.
Unnatural Exposure is the eighth book in the Patricia Cornwell series, dedicated to Kay Scarpetta. In this book Kay is dealing with deadly viruses and electronic threats.
I’m starting to find this series boring, I have to say that I read this book last year and I don’t even remember what the main plot is. By now I think I am not able to tollerate Kay anymore, especially about the things that Particia doesn’t say or about things that she talks about but that happen between books.
But when did Kay have a mastectomy? Never heard of this… as I never heard of Mark’s death (which I will continue to repeat).
Portrait of a Killer: Jack The Ripper - Case Closed True Crime Patricia Cornwell
Mass Market
November 11, 2002
ebook
383
English
February 12, 2018
February 22, 2018
In the fall of 1888, all of London was held in the grip of unspeakable terror. An elusive madman calling himself Jack the Ripper was brutally butchering women in the slums of London’s East End. Police seemed powerless to stop the killer, who delighted in taunting them and whose crimes were clearly escalating in violence from victim to victim. And then the Ripper’s violent spree seemingly ended as abruptly as it had begun. He had struck out of nowhere and then vanished from the scene. Decades passed, then fifty years, then a hundred, and the Ripper’s bloody sexual crimes became anemic and impotent fodder for puzzles, mystery weekends, crime conventions, and so-called “Ripper Walks” that end with pints of ale in the pubs of Whitechapel. But to number-one New York Times bestselling novelist Patricia Cornwell, the Ripper murders are not cute little mysteries to be transformed into parlor games or movies but rather a series of terrible crimes that no one should get away with, even after death. Now Cornwell applies her trademark skills for meticulous research and scientific expertise to dig deeper into the Ripper case than any detective before her—and reveal the true identity of this fabled Victorian killer.
In Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper, Case Closed, Cornwell combines the rigorous discipline of twenty-first century police investigation with forensic techniques undreamed of during the late Victorian era to solve one of the most infamous and difficult serial murder cases in history. Drawing on unparalleled access to original Ripper evidence, documents, and records, as well as archival, academic, and law-enforcement resources, FBI profilers, and top forensic scientists, Cornwell reveals that Jack the Ripper was none other than a respected painter of his day, an artist now collected by some of the world’s finest museums: Walter Richard Sickert.
It has been said of Cornwell that no one depicts the human capability for evil better than she. Adding layer after layer of circumstantial evidence to the physical evidence discovered by modern forensic science and expert minds, Cornwell shows that Sickert, who died peacefully in his bed in 1942, at the age of 81, was not only one of Great Britain’s greatest painters but also a serial killer, a damaged diabolical man driven by megalomania and hate. She exposes Sickert as the author of the infamous Ripper letters that were written to the Metropolitan Police and the press. Her detailed analysis of his paintings shows that his art continually depicted his horrific mutilation of his victims, and her examination of this man’s birth defects, the consequent genital surgical interventions, and their effects on his upbringing present a casebook example of how a psychopathic killer is created.
About the book
This book is not fiction but an essay, a summary of the research done by the author on Jack the Ripper. I read this book for the Popsugar challenge prompt “True Crime” and therefore I had no expectations.
I find the book a bit confusing. I liked it as an essay, but it jumps from one period to another without chronology and I think, my personal thought, that if you are writing a report of a real person’s life, you need to chronologically plan the book or at least a little bit more chronologically that it is; you can’t jump from one period to another and then go back. She talked about Jack’s first murders, then she jumped to those who may have been his own murders but that have never been attributed to him, only to return to those attributed to him a few years earlier. I know it is divided into chapters and each chapter has its argument, but even more so, putting chapters in chronological order is wiser in my opinion. And she talks a little bit too much about the watermark of the paper… but I noticed this in her books, too, she is too much detailed on certain things and often the common reader is bored about it (and also it’s boring to those who know about argument because they already know those things).
It is New Year's Eve, the last day of Virginia's bloodiest year since the Civil War. Dr. Kay Scarpetta plunges into the murky depths of a ship graveyard to recover the very human remains of Ted Eddings, an investigative reporter. What kind of story was Eddings chasing below the icy surface of the Elizabeth River? And why did Scarpetta receive a phone call from someone reporting the death before the police were notified? She soon discovers that Eddings' murder is merely the first layer of something much deeper --- a labyrinthine conspiracy that will put all of her criminal and forensic knowledge to the test like never before. For Scarpetts, the real challenge won't be cataloging the growing number of dead bodies, but preventing herself and those she loves from becoming the next victims.
About the Book
Cause of Death is the 7th book in the series of detective stories about Kay Scarpetta,
I liked the book itself, the plot is compelling and when it comes to nuclear, I’m all for it since I’m a chemistry major, the only flaw is Kay, I know that is the main character but I really can not stand her relationship with Wesley or her long speeches with her niece… in all the books I’ve read so far, it is the usual story with Lucy. I liked Marino more here, even if I did not like him in the previous book or at least his jealousy, here I found his character improved with both Kay and Lucy.
In From Potter's Field, #1 New York Times bestselling author Patricia Cornwell once again enters the chilling world of Dr. Kay Scarpetta, Chief Medical Examiner of Virginia and consulting forensic pathologist for the FBI. Upon examining a dead woman found in snowbound Central Park, Scarpetta immediately recognizes the grisly work of Temple Brooks Gault, a bold, brilliant killer from her past. Soon she realizes that Gault's murders are but a violent chain leading up to one ultimate kill: Scarpetta herself. Now she must stay her own fears and keep step with a psychopath who is always one step ahead, both everywhere and nowhere. But even with the help of her FBI and police comrades, Scarpetta knows the endgame is hers alone to play. Having repeatedly plunged into the madness of Gault's mind, Scarpetta must finally descend into his terrifying home in the subway tunnels beneath New York City. And confront the one killer who would not be caught
About the Book
This is the sixth book of Kay Scarpetta’s Series and I liked this book more that the previous ones. I found the first ones too slow especially the very first and too tedious with details.
I still don’t remember where we met Mark, if you read my mini review for the 4th book on Goodreads.com, you’d know that I didn’t remember him all together… I do read a lot of books so maybe that’s why, but it seems that he was quite important… I remember that he was already dead in the previous book so that’s a plus since the last time, but nothing… don’t even remember the bombing (but maybe that happened outside the books).
I don’t like Kay’s relationship with Benton and I don’t understand Marino’s jealousy…
Overall I liked the plot, finally Gault’s story is over (I hope!!) but I find the ending abrupt!
Unnatural Exposure
