Cause of Death (Patricia Cornwell)

One of Scarpetta's favorite reporters is dead and she must investigate his death. Why was he in the river at the old Navy yard? Cornwell can give you all the forensics that most people do not have in their background. Here she takes you underwater to remove the body of the reporter. This is one of her better books. Read it, you will like it. By Ruth Thompson author of "The Bluegrass Dream" and "Natchez Above The River" The Bluegrass Dream: A Wilderness Adventure of Early SettlersNatchez Above The River: A Family's Survival In The Civil WarQualifying Laps: A Brewster County NovelSins of the Fathers: A Brewster County NovelHaintsTravelers

This book is an ok page-turner but not too much else. It is not up to the other books in the Scarpetta series. Kay Scarpetta, female private eye and coroner, investigates the murder of a journalist. At the time of his death, the journalist was investigating a cult. The investigation teaches Kay more about cults than she'd planned on learning. This book is ok for the plane or beach but you can find better. Try an earlier book in this series.

The forensic details were great in this book. It is amazing where all these murder's take place. This one a Navy Inactive Shipyard. I think this novel brought perfect stranger's to be best friend's. Cornwell for sure has the recipe for a perfect murder mystery novel down pat. I love these medical murder novels. I can say I don't believe I would ever go scuba diving even in clear water, Cornwell you are a brave soul!

As I have said in an earlier review, Patricia Cornwell's earliest books (particularly Potter's Field) really influenced my life. After I read Cause of Death...probably the worst book I have read in my life, I decided I'm going to go back and re-read the books I thought were great and see if they really were great, or I was just young when I read them. In Cause of Death, it seems like Patricia Cornwell is trying to prove how ingenious (or genious) she is through Lucy (I think that's Cornwell's real wishful alter ego). I find it hilarious that Kay Scarpetta, the ME of Virginia, thinks, she is of equal ranking with a flag officer - ha! Furthermore, I can't believe she could get away with calling a flag officer in the Navy a Major General! The Navy, Coast Guard and Public Health Service have admirals, NOT generals! I think it's pathetic that kind of detail even got through the editor. Anyways, I never even finished this book, it just got too stupid and unrealistic -- Kay Scarpetta g... Read more

This book, while nowhere near as good a read as "From Potter's Field" or even "Postmortem", still shows that Cornwell's a decent writer of thrillers. Here, Scarpetta is pitted against a religious cult with plans to take over a nuclear reactor and destroy the world. It's a plot that would better serve James Bond, but Cornwell keeps the forensic science up to date. There's an annoying investigator who gets on Scarpetta's nerves (but there's one of them in nearly every book) but he's easily dispatched.

Dr. Kay Scarpetta is a great character and all of Cornwell's books are interesting and well written. But with every new installment in the series she has put more stress on Scarpetta's friends and their lives.. and less on the mystery at hand and the forensics. This is mistake, I think. I really don't care how tasteful her house is.. or what a wonderful and talented person her niece is. (She isn't.) I care about how she goes about solving unsolvable cases through forensics. I also wish she would find a new bad guy. This ridiculous werewolf person is getting tedious. He isn't even believable. I wish she would go back to her original strengths.

this is another great book!!!!