Patricia Cornwell has written another satisfying detective mystery. Her forensic pathologist and Chief Medical Examiner of Virginia, Kay Scarpetta, endures yet more political and personal difficulties. At the best of times, her job is a grim one, examining the bodies of the recently deceased for clues as to how they came to die. But this is the worst of times for Kay Scarpetta: the book starts the day after an attack on her by a monstrous serial killer which ended her last novel, Black Notice. At first it seems that the biggest mystery is whether her attacker will confess to other murders, and Cornwell is mainly tying up loose ends from previous Scarpetta novels. But then the loose ends refuse to cooperate, and instead, become further unraveled. More people come to grisly ends, ending up in her morgue, and the usual unhappy gang of crime-solvers, including police captain Marino, Kay’s niece Lucy (now with ATF), and even her dead lover Benton Wesley help her in her search for the truth.

For the psychologically-inclined mystery lover, The Last Precinct will be especially attractive. Early in the novel, Scarpetta reaches a psychological low. It is clear that her job is taking its toll on her; the recent death of her Benton Wesley, combined with her childhood experience of her father’s terminal illness and eventual death are traumas she is barely coping with. Her main defense mechanism is denial: Scarpetta immerses herself in her work, and when she isn’t working, she obsesses over Italian cooking. But now she cannot even retreat to her own home, because it is a crime scene swarming with investigators. So she stays with her old friend, psychiatrist Anna. Anna cancels all her appointments and makes it her mission to get Kay to finally face her demons. Although events soon prevent further long emotional therapeutic sessions between Anna and Kay, Kay does seem to make some progress.

More than most detective novels, The Last Precinct pays attention to psychological detail. Cornwell emphasizes time and again the terrible effects of murder on families, and makes plain how the damage caused by murder continues for years after the original event. She even, in the course of her Kay’s musings on this topic, manages to recommend a book on what to do following the murder of a loved one, What to Do When the Police Leave: A Guide to the First Days of Traumatic Loss, by Bill Jenkins. It is hard to know how realistic is the psychotherapy between Anna and Kay, and I certainly didn’t feel that Cornwell has got to the bottom of her characters, or even that her characters have great depth. But nevertheless, her material is thought provoking.

The material of the novel is also disturbing. The reader has to endure detailed descriptions of autopsies, methods of murder, and the sexual fantasy of a sadistic killer. There isn’t a great deal of suspense in this novel, and there isn’t even a great deal of action, considering that it spans 449 pages, or 10 long cassette tapes over 17 hours 30 minutes. Some scenes are described over many chapters, with almost obsessive attention to detail. What is most impressive is Cornwell’s layering of plot to include several of her previous Scarpetta books: developments in this novel will have readers of her past novels wanting to re-read them, trying to work out whether she provided clues in them to suggest that the whole story was yet to be told. You normally think that by the end of a crime novel you know whodunnit. As you read The Last Precinct, you realize that there were large parts of the plot never revealed in her previous novels.

I listened to this novel in the unabridged audio tape version. Kate Reading does a fine job of bringing the characters to life. It’s especially good for long journeys.

Categories: Fiction