Review of The Scarpetta Factor (Kay Scarpetta #17) by Patricia Cornwell

The Scarpetta Factor (Kay Scarpetta #17)

by Patricia Cornwell

 

"It is the week before Christmas. The effects of the credit crunch have prompted Dr Kay Scarpetta to offer her services pro bono to New York City's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. But in no time at all, her increased visibility seems to precipitate a string of dramatic and unsettling events. She is asked live on air about the sensational case of Hannah Starr, who has vanished and is presumed dead. Moments later during the same broadcast, she receives a startling call-in from a former psychiatric patient of Benton Wesley's.

When she returns after the show to the apartment where she and Benton live, she finds a suspicious package - possibly a bomb - waiting for her at the front desk. Soon the apparent threat on Scarpetta's life finds her embroiled in a deadly plot that includes a famous actor accused of an unthinkable sex crime and the disappearance of a beautiful millionairess with whom Lucy seems to have shared a secret past..."

2 out of 5*

I'm sorry to say, not one of the better of Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta novels.

This one took me three separate attempts to even get past the first chapters, and having gotten to the end on this last attempt, I’m not really sure it was worth the effort.  I found this book almost like an extremely long filler.  There was too much that needed knowledge that the reader would only have if they had read the previous books and not enough of a stand-alone story in it.  I also felt that for a book named The Scarpetta Factor, it didn't have enough about Scarpetta herself.  It seemed to be more about the others in her life than Kay herself.

I never think a book should be a chore to read.  It should be an escape to another place and time, something that envelopes and absorbs me, it should engage with me and pull me into its world.  This one just didn't do it for me I'm afraid, it felt more like wading through mud just so that I could get to the end.  Having said that, it won't stop me reading others by Patricia Cornwell.  In fact after this one I read Chaos which is #24 in the Kay Scarpetta series and was much more impressed (4 out of 5*).  Should I read all these books in order?  Maybe, but as much as I like following characters as they develop through a series, I feel each should be able to stand on its own also.  

So, I'm afraid to say I wouldn't recommend this book.