On New Year’s Eve in 1995, Ted Eddings is murdered. It would not be the last death of the year in Virginia, but it would certainly be the most important. Eddings was an AP reporter with a charming demeanor and was one of the few media people Kay Scarpetta allowed even close to the inner areas of her medical examiner’s offices. And now he has been found dead at the end of his diver’s air hose in a restricted area where decommissioned naval vessels are made ready for sale to other nations.Kay Scarpetta is currently covering the Tidewater ME’s office due to a sudden rash of resignations and absences in that office. When she is notified of the diving-related death, Kay insists on seeing the body in situ. Upon arriving at the shipyard, she unexpectedly encounters delays and outright harassment from both the Tidewater detective in charge of the case and the naval NIS captain in charge of military oversight for the facility. However, as the Chief ME for the state and a lawyer, she has more law on her side than they do and she is finally able to dive.After discovering the identity of the deceased, Kay notifies Pete Marino of the Richmond PD, since Eddings resided there. Before she can even finish the autopsy, Kay and Pete know that they have the murdered body of a man found in a militarily restricted area, a man who had a large cache of assault weapons and ammunition in his apartment and who possessed a copy of “The Book of Hand,” the philosophical and operational bible for a neo-fascist group, the New Zionists, based in the Tidewater.And so begins the seventh entry in Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta series. And while the title of the novel is singular, the storyline goes with the plural for both words, “cause” and “death.” In less than two weeks time, Kay and company go from a suspicious diving accident to a potential holocaust. And it all makes sense; it all feels plausible.Cornwell is a master, in this tale, of laying out the puzzle pieces in such a manner that the reader does not know if there are not enough clues or if there are too many. We have a real sense of who the bad guys are, but we are just as perplexed as Scarpetta, Marino and Wesley as to what they are really up to. And since the novel is in Scarpetta’s first person POV, we have no insight into the thoughts of other characters. We only hear what they say, not necessarily why they are saying it or what they really mean when they say it.Anyone who is this far into the Scarpetta series knows that Cornwell writes gritty police procedurals, not romantic suspense. In fact, for the greater part of this novel, the love life of each major character is in the toilet. But even though any HEA achieved in this series is more likely to be associated with successfully solving a murder than with a couple happily sailing off into the sunset, this book ends well. The crisis is a page-turner and is heart pounding to the last sentence of the book. And, for once, the personal circumstances of all are improved, not perfect, not settled, just improved.
Patricia Cornwell's Scarpetta novels were something of a guilty pleasure for me during the '90s. Enjoyable and addictive page-turner crime thrillers with a generous helping of pathology and forensic science detail, which appealed to my otherwise dormant inner science geek.But by this stage in the series - Cause of Death is the 7th Kay Scarpetta novel - Cornwell had well and truly lost the plot, both figuratively and literally.At her best, Cornwell had always written rather plodding, uninventive prose, but as the series progressed any pretence at literary merit flew out of the window along with her dictionary. And the plots managed the seemingly impossible feat of becoming both formulaic and at the same time ludicrously outlandish and unbelievable.While it might be true that writing series genre fiction is by its nature inherently formulaic, I'm not sure the formula should be quite so transparent and simplistic as it is here and in the subsequent Scarpetta novels.Paul Sheldon's "No. 1 fan", Annie Wilkes, might have kidnapped the author in Misery in order to ensure that he didn't kill off his heroine, Misery Chastain, and thus end the series, but I'd be willing to bet that even the most ardent of Cornwell's fans would be more inclined to hold her hostage in order to prevent her from churning out any more of this bilge.If you're new to reading Cornwell my advice would be to start with her first novel, Postmortem, read the series in chronological order and stop while the going is still reasonably good. And whatever you do, don't touch the Judy Hammer/Andy Brazil books (Hornet's Nest, Southern Cross etc.) with a ten foot barge pole.Unfortunately for me, a fondness for Scarpetta's unfeasibly sexy FBI/ATF agent lesbian niece, Lucy Farinelli, has kept me plodding doggedly through the novels well after their prime. But now, thanks to a timely intervention in the form of Lucy's rather out of character sexual preference U-turn, even I've been freed from my addiction to this tosh.
What do You think about Cause Of Death (2007)?
I really enjoyed this book -- until about the last forth when the plot took a crazy turn. I don't know why so many thriller/mystery authors think that just solving a crime isn't big enough. There must be some international, world-shaking aspect to the plot. And with this book, I think that is where it gets off the tracks.It aims big -- and misses -- badly.For me, the entire Kay Scarpetta series is plagued by the real-life limitations of a medical examiner. A state med examiner's job is simply to examine the body. It is not to go diving into murky waters, to jet off to England to interview witnesses, or to take part in negotiations with terrorists who are holding the nation hostage. For me, it just doesn't work.The writing is excellent. The pacing is great. The characters are fun. And if you can suspend your disbelief to a greater level than me, you will undoubtedly enjoy it.
—Stephen Terrell
The thing to remember when reading fiction; latitude is a given. The more flawed a character is the more threads of a storyline are available. Dr. Scarpetta is a thriving type A personality who works in a man's world. Her impressions are going to be different and thankfully she is emotional. I have said and continue to think she's an extension of what Patricia Cornwell is like and I find that continually compelling. She gets involved in multiple things in this book just like the novels that have preceded it; The introduction of Lucy's personal life and her sexuality is wonderful. Everyone seems to think she would never be allowed to be an FBI agent but I'm not so sure; there are plenty of CIA/FBI agents who have a very messy private life. Genre fiction is supposed to introduce a pattern and may have a surprise twist at the end. A side note; if you read the introduction Cornwell states how uncomfortable she was with diving and never fully embraced it. Let's give Cornwell some credit in her 7th novel as she uses the gift fiction writers are known for; imagination.
—LA Carlson
So much for the books getting better, I guess I spoke too soon! In this book Dr. KS is filling in for an out of town medical examiner. Then she's scuba diving (because she's certified because Dr. K can do anything), then her niece is crying and drinking and crying and what? And then the Libyan’s kill Doc Brown to steal his plutonium so Marty McFly takes off with the time machine thanks to the flux capacitor... Oh wait.. well, it was something like that. It was like she took everything that was sort of timely at the moment she was writing- middle east, nuclear weapons and David Koresh and tossed it all in a blender and tried to make a plot out of it. The plot needed a ton of explaining and at the end it was like she realized that so she just stopped writing to save herself the trouble. Because there is no other reason for that abrupt ending.The characters are going downhill fast. Seriously- Lucy is a mess and there is no way she passed any sort of psych eval to get into the FBI. I mean I've been saying it for a while, she is a little crazy-cakes. Why would the government let her carry a gun? Kay is the most unsympathetic character ever. I'm over her affair and I'm really over Benton. The best character the series has is Marino, and that doesn't say much. He has a mystery son, and a heartbreaking love for Kay (that she shits on whenever possible) and he is trying to kill himself with food and cigarettes to get out of this series. I can't say I blame him...
—Tara
