Patricia Cornwell

Cruel & Unusual (Kay Scarpetta Mysteries)

Mary Baldwin

I couldn't sleep last night so I devoured book 4 in the series read/re-read. Even though these books are far from the best I've read, they have something subliminally addictive about them and they really are page turners. 

Saying that, this book is probably my least favourite so far in that the plot just seemed to tick over without really peaking. It also felt a little like there should have been a book between this and the previous.. Heaps of time seems to have elapsed in Lucy's world but only a matter of months in Kay's.

The positives were that the book does develop the relationships between Kay/Marino and Kay/Lucy even further and I suspect that will make subsequent books even more enjoyable.

There's a death row inmate, some hacking and the usual dose of trouble lined up for Kay.

Patricia Daniels Cornwell

The fingerprints say the murderer is the man who's just been executed ... At 11.05 one December evening in Richmond, Virginia, convicted murderer Ronnie Joe Waddell is pronounced dead in the electric chair. At the morgue Dr Kay Scarpetta waits for Waddell's body. Preparing to perform a post-mortem before the subject is dead is a strange feeling, but Scarpetta has been here before. And Waddell's death is not the only newsworthy event on this freezing night: the grotesquely wounded body of a young boy is found propped against a rubbish skip. To Scarpetta the two cases seem unrelated, until she recalls that the body of Waddell's victim had been arranged in a strikingly similar position ...

Cruel and Unusual

Sarah 

Dr Kay Scarpetta is an interesting but very private woman. She’s not emotional but logical. Sometimes it’s hard to understand her even when it’s written in first person. I don’t even know her age. This book had a lot of information on computer systems that left me quite confused but other than that the story was good. I didn’t see how the murders linked it and the defence going after Scarpetta was an interesting turn. 
There also felt like a Book should have been in between this and the last book. One minute Mark was there and they were just getting back together and the next, he’s dead from a bomb blast. Everything had changed for her and I found that very sad. Was she ever wanting children? From the way she thinks when she’s with Lucy, I think she doesn’t deem herself capable and believes she would be a horrible mum but she’s the best Lucy has and I hope to read more with her and Lucy together.

Cruel & Unusual (Kay Scarpetta Mysteries)

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