Kay Scarpetta: role model or flawed character gone bad?

It was a personal challenge to read all of Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta mystery/thrillers. I'd never read Cornwell until two weeks ago, when I stumbled across a couple of her books at a garage sale and thought they might make an interesting read.

I started in the wrong place, I know that now, but I really don't know if starting at the beginning instead of three books into the series would have made a big difference in how I viewed the series. Most likely not.

Cornwell's Kay Scrapetta books are as follows: Postmortem, Body of Evidence, All That Remains, Cruel and Unusual, The Body Farm, From Potter's Field, Cause of Death, Unnatural Exposure, Point of Origin, Black Notice, The Last Precinct.

Postmortem, the first of the series, was published in 1990 and won five international awards as the best crime novel of the year. Since 1990, Cornwell has written one Scarpetta mystery a year, her 2002 novel not available as of yet.

All novels in this series are told in first person, through Dr. Kay Scarpetta's eyes, Chief Medical Examiner of Virginia. Whether it is Cornwell's style to use contractions sparsely or Kay Scarpetta's education and voice, the narrative does tend to become stilted at times.

Another problem I have with Cornwell's writing is that at times she becomes bogged down in describing technical aspects of the case she's working on, whether it be fingerprints, autopsies, fibers, DNA analysis, or any of the numerous other facets of forensic science. However, I also recognize that for a large portion of Cornwell's audience, this is what makes her writing fascinating.

Most of Cornwell's fans read these books for the techno-speak, the inside information into crime investigation that Cornwell has meticulously researched and learned through her job as policebeat journalist and an employee at a morgue. It is also those details that give the books a gritty realism that a lot of other crime novels just can't compete with.

By the fourth book I found myself skimming through detailed descriptions of crime science research that had appeared in previous books, a pitfall for writing in a series. It takes a lot of skill to make familiar material interesting when writing in a series and allow a new reader who hasn't started at the beginning to know what is going on and not feel left out when events from previous events are referenced. For the most part Cornwell does it well, but does occasionally get bogged down in techno-speak.

Cornwell also does two other things exceedingly well with these books. She has created characters that you care about, that you want to follow, and get to know, and she has a way of taking plot and twisting it into works of art.

I didn't care for Kay Scarpetta when I first started reading, but as the story progressed and I began to unlock the doors to some of what motivates Scarpetta I warmed to her. She's not always lovable, at times comes across as cold and unemotional. She's not someone I would want as a friend, but as a heroine in a novel I find that I have become addicted to knowing more about Scarpetta, following her adventures, and wondering what she's doing between books. Let's face it, there aren't a lot of good books out there with strong female main characters whose flaws and strengths are explored as thoroughly as Cornwell does with Scarpetta.

Scarpetta also has a friend in Richmond Police detective Pete Marino, one of the most unlikely pairs I've encountered in fiction. Marino is a transplanted bigot from New York, he's clumsy, inappropriate, has health issues that include obesity, high blood pressure, a love of anything alcohol and fried, and prostate problems just to name a few. Scarpetta goes from tolerating him one moment, annoyed and angry with him the next, and back to realizing what a loyal friend she has in him.

Marino is an astute detective, even if he gets distracted by his own shortsighted views and prejudices from time to time. Sometimes bumbling, sometimes three steps ahead of Scarpetta. Marino is divorced, has one child (Rocky) who he despises and who we finally find out what he does for a living in The Last Precinct.

Scarpetta also has a niece, Lucy, who is a genius with an IQ that is practically immeasurable and who also has problems with expressing herself appropriately and socialization. Lucy is also a lesbian who has a penchant for making poor choices in lovers. Lucy has become better at dealing with pressure and people as she has matured.

My last nit with Cornwell is the almost obsessive fascination she seems to have with homosexuals. There are far too many references to people being gay, lesbians, as well as the more unsavory racial slurs and pejoratives. All Cornwell's books have an excessive number of homosexual references, and while I have no problem with gay characters so long as they are not portrayed as stereotypes, this many references have no relevance to the story or the plot and many times are just annoying and left me wondering why they were included.