| Title | : | Body of Evidence (Kay Scarpetta, #2) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0743493915 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780743493918 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 403 |
| Publication | : | First published February 5, 1991 |
Body of Evidence (Kay Scarpetta, #2) Reviews
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An enjoyable book that sees Kay Scarpetta looking for the killer of a young author. The author was working on her memoirs, but the potentially explosive manuscript goes missing, and several high profile people are invested in finding, and hiding, it's whereabouts. As the body count starts to climb, Scarpetta finds herself under siege and scared. I found this book to be easy to read and highly entertaining. A worthy addition to the series.
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I was such a gruesome kid... in that I loved to read this series. Blood never bothered me, and the more psychopaths you throw at me, the happier of a reader I am. I think I learned some anatomy from this book. :)
The descriptions are vivid, not for the faint-hearted. Hits close to him when it's about a writer being murdered. Almost decapitated.
The MC, Scarpetta, is a challenging character. She's so honest and raw, you have to respect and love her. But she's also got this side of her where I'd be a little scared to be her friend.
Very complex mystery. Lots of clues. Very intense read. -
My previous read was the first in this series, and I went straight on to reading this book, the second in the Kay Scarpetta series. This time a stalked romance writer somehow agrees to open the door the door to the seemingly deranged person that killed her. A missing manuscript causes further trouble when Scarpetta is accused of taking it! Meanwhile the murders continue!
Another a tad bit Convoluted and bizarre, it still is an absorbing case for Dr Scarpetta. As with the first book I enjoyed returning to Scarpetta's world and her supporting cast. 6 out of 12.
2008 read -
3 Stars
I don't know whether it's the writing itself or the time when it was written (early 90s), but Kay Scarpetta is one silly broad, who constantly makes choices that had me scratching my head in confusion (and frustration). For a character that is so beloved I can't quite find the appeal (yet). And her detective friend (?), Marino, is wholly unlikable, with his gruff, assholish demeanour, and his constant prejudice slurs and harsh judgements of nearly everyone he comes into contact with who isn't like him. What a prick. If I had to witness one more homophobic rant I would have gone off my tree!
Luckily, I enjoy a good murder mystery arc and this one kept me entertained and intrigued enough to plough on through the character bullshit. I'll probably continue the series at some point, just not immediately. -
Patricia Cornwell’s Second Kay Scarpetta novel, Body of Evidence is a suspense-laden thriller which has Scarpetta investigating the murder of an author. There is intrigue involving the search for the author’s final manuscript that has been hidden by the author just before dying. The manuscript supposedly contains a tell-all, autobiographical component, which translates into the possibility that the murder was a result of named persons/suspects/family members in the book. While Scarpetta searches for the manuscript, she is also investigating other alternative scenarios, not the least of which are mental patients with a history of violent tendencies. The forensic parts are slow as usual, but still fascinating to a novice that loves science, and are really some of the most unique aspects to reading a Scarpetta murder mystery novel. Because Cornwell worked in a forensic setting, it infuses these books with a genuine clinical, and atmospheric milieu despite the dry verbosity of the technical parts. It reminds me of the Quincy MD TV show starring Jack Klugman except with a female lead that has distinct challenges because of her gender.
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Body Of Evidence by Patricia Cornwell is book 2 in the Dr Kay Scarpetta series, I can't believe that it actually took so long to pick up this series and I'm definitely enjoying it so far.
I love the whole build up throughout and even the quick face off with the killer at the end, this book definitely shows a little more emotion between the characters and the growth in friendships between them, it's certainly setting a picture of how you can see this series growing which I'm looking forward to reading and being a part of.
I would definitely recommend this one as part of the series even as a standalone 📓 -
As a standalone, this book rates 5 stars. As number 2 in the series, it gets only 3
WARNING - SPOILERS AHEAD
I've already read the first book in the series,
Post Mortem, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I found Kay Scarpetta a realistic, sober, and intelligent protagonist, and the forensic pathology parts are fascinating. However, reading this one, (book 2 in the Kay Scarpetta series) I found it so similar to the first book in plot structure, that its formulaic construction is all too obvious, including the endings in which Ms Scarpetta, a Chief Medical Examiner, becomes a target of the killer in the end. How unlikely is that, the killer going after the CME? Scarpetta must have really bad luck to have it happen twice, and so soon (I imagine the time setting between books 1 & 2 are not long apart). In fact, I'm finding that both novels are now so mixed up in my mind, it's beginning to become a blur as to what happened in which novel, that's how similar they are.
So my advice is only read one - either Post Mortem or this one, not both.
My take on series where books follow the same formula is that the author is only interested in making money with minimal effort, and assumes readers are just mindless sheep. Considering the success that these types of books have, maybe we are. -
The first book was good, this one's even better! It amazes me how Patricia Cornwell can make everything look so unclear at first then shows you the big picture when she pieces it all together in the end. This book kept me at the edge of my seat and I have learned to become genuinely interested in every character. Definitely worth reading especially for CSI fans like me!
Quotable Quotes"Some people simply want company."
"I didn't know what I wanted. Maybe I never had."
"The older I got, the more I was of the opinion that love can be experienced in many different ways. There is no right or wrong way to love, only in how it is expressed."
"You can never be real sure who's all right and who ain't... It's real hard to know these days, that's for damn sure." -
Reread
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Cornwell brings Dr. Kay Scarpetta back in the critically acclaimed series to test her wiles in a new and disturbing manner. When a murdered author is found in her home, investigators are left with little to know insight, which bothers Scarpetta almost as much as the slaying itself. Questions grow exponentially while answers remain deftly hidden behind layers of the victim’s past. Scarpetta and the police being piecing things together, discovering a deeper back story related to her current piece of work and a collection of letters she wrote to a mysterious ‘M’. After a related murder, Scarpetta realises there is more to the story than meets the eye. When an old flame resurfaces, he could be the key to putting it all together or the impediment that the killer needs to make a clean getaway. As things begin to come together on one level, they unravel before Scarpetta can make sense of all the gathered evidence. Will the killer slide back into obscurity before being called out to face justice? A brilliant, thought-provoking novel that will lead fans of the genre begging for more. Great character back story strengthens the foundation of both the novel and the series, still in its infancy.
Cornwell does a fabulous job with all aspects of the novel. I must keep reminding myself that she forged the way in the genre, where characters such as Tempe Brennan and Megan Hunt followed suit with their own medical sleuthing. Scarpetta does defy the modern female protagonist with her crass perspective and vices galore. A great series for Reichs’ fans to try, while waiting for the next novel. Sure not to disappoint the reader who keeps an open mind. Any fan loving a great murder mystery with a hands-on medical professional will surely eat this up.
Kudos, Madam Cornwell. I am a fan and cannot get enough of these books. -
This series is what I call a "guilty pleasure". Not at all high-brow, but easy to read thrillers with some mystery, and I have to admit that I enjoy the gruesome details about forensic pathology. Being an engineering type, I like to know the details behind things, how things work, in particular when it comes to problem solving or investigative techniques.
I do love the character of Kay Scarpetta; she's a strong, smart woman who is also attractive. She makes me nuts sometimes when she does risky things that her superior brain should be telling her not to do, but then there wouldn't be a story, would there? -
Definitely enjoyed this one more than I did the first and can see how this series would get better as it goes.
Loved that the mystery kept me on my toes and I didn't quite figure out whodunit until towards the end. Will definitely keep reading these! -
Lackluster, especially after the introduction of Al Hunt (no, not that Al Hunt) and his mentally ill friend Frankie. An utterly tedious denouement, with the reveal of the killer's identity the most soporific moment of the novel. Much dull bloviation about Key West and its gay population. A lost opportunity to make . -
Each September, I choose one of the many books my mother left behind and read it as a way to honor her. We shared a passion for reading but we didn’t always share the same tastes. But nevertheless, I plunge ahead and usually discover new joys that I might not otherwise have even tried.
This is the second novel in the Kay Scarpetta series featuring the Chief Medical Examiner of Virginia and her forays into solving crime cases. The plot revolves around a reclusive writer who has been found murdered and Kay’s subsequent forensic examinations which lead the police to a series of related murders all having something to do with the writer’s missing manuscript. Eventually, Kay, herself, gets sucked into the orbit and becomes a potential victim as well.
I’ve read one other book in this series but it was many years ago and I don’t remember much about it. But this time around, I was in the mood for a contemporary mystery so it fit the bill quite well. (I use the term “contemporary” loosely as this was published nearly 30 years ago, before the rise of cell phones and the prevalent use of the internet, which of course, makes for a different sort of sleuthing experience). I found the character of Kay Scarpetta to be an honest type of character, meaning that while she is extremely competent at many things, she’s not perfect and she makes mistakes just like the rest of us. Her police detective pal, Morino, is definitely a man of his time, displaying the prejudices of many people in the early 1990’s that are cringeworthy today. But once again, an honestly-drawn character. The mystery was nicely complex with an evolving plot and, of course, the pathology and ME terminology was educational and provocative.
I have several more of my mom’s Patricia Cornwell books still on my shelves and based on this experience, I’ll certainly be reading more of them. -
Number 2 in the Dr Scarpetta series.
This mystery takes place over a twenty years, or so, period. At first it sees simple. A young woman's body is found mutilated and the murder is investigated. But as more mutilated bodies keep turning up it soon becomes obvious that thing are not as simple as first thought. To get to the truth Kay and her sidekick, Lt Marino, need to find out what happened almost twenty years ago.
As you read it's hard to imagine how the past and the present will come together but with
Patricia Cornwell's skill, it all makes perfect sense in the end.
Well written, good plot and enough characters to love and hate. What more can you ask for?
As much as I enjoyed this book, for me, it fell a bit short of the first book
Postmortem but it was still good enough to give it 4 stars. -
Segunda entrega de la serie protagonizada por la forense Kay Scarpetta, galardonada con el premio Sherlock en 1999.
Unas cartas encontradas en casa de Beryl demuestran que sufría acoso, pero ¿Por qué abrió la puerta a su asesino? Este interrogante trae de calle a la doctora Scarpetta. Además, el abogado de Beryl le reclama un polémico borrador de un manuscrito autobiográfico de la escritora.
Y… aparece un antiguo novio, más asesinatos, un suicidio, el FBI y el hijo de un senador.
Con todos estos interrogantes nos adentramos en un nuevo caso de la doctora Kay Scarpetta. ¿Será el manuscrito el motivo de los asesinatos? -
Why read: Reading the series.
What impressed me: Body of Evidence was definitely a topsy-turvy mystery. Not only do you not know what's going on with the victims, you really don't have nay clue who to trust in the investigation either. Kay's not knowing friend from foe in her personal life adds a lot of tension and intrigue to the story. And either Cornwell does much better in this second book with laying off the excessive explanations, or I'm just getting used to her writing style.
What disappointed me: Nothing stood out as disappointing. Well, except the crazed homophobia of law enforcement. Was it really that extreme in the early 90s when this book first came out?
Recommended: Yes. Even better than the last.
Continue series: Yes. I'm definitely becoming interested in Kay's personal life. -
4,35 stars - English Ebook
Following the death of a writer, Kay Scarpetta is drawn into the search for her murderer. With a valuable manuscript missing and a mystery surrounding why the dead woman appears to have let the killer into her house, Scarpetta discovers someone from her own past may be involved in the mystery. Untangling the web of secrets surrounding the writer’s life and her relationship with an ageing reclusive author, the inquisitive medical examiner learns that she too, may be on the killer’s hitlist.
This is the second book in the Kay Scarpetta series and like the first one it’s a cracker. However, unlike the first one, this isn’t a straightforward tale. It leads us through a maze of possible suspects that never seem to move the investigation forward, but like all good murder mysteries, the clues are there, and the narrative builds towards a fridning end. -
3.5 stars. Not nearly as good as the first in the series, but I know this series gets better. I don't think I ever read this one, though. There were some interesting twists in this, definitely not what I would have guessed. A solid entry in the series, but without the crackle of the first,
Postmortem. I'll definitely continue with the series. -
Decent but pretty routine addition to the series. Two brutal murders linked together, her ex making an unexpected return, a celebrity lawyer out to ruin her and some small red herrings to keep you guessing. Started well and then tailed away. Still - love the heroine so will be sticking with the series.
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3.5 stars. Really good.
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First Read: This is one of her first in this series. I've been reading a lot of the later ones, and there is a different cast of members in this book. Quite nice as her language is a lot better than it gets in later series. Kind of fun to see the trail she forges as the book is beginning. I liked it quite a lot. Recommend.
Second Read: Kay Scarpetta, chief medical examiner of Virginia, gets involved in the case of a brutal stabbing death in Richmond of romance writer Beryl Madison. Then, Madison's greedy lawyer accuses Scarpetta of losing his client's latest manuscript, an autobiographical expose of Beryl's early life as protégé of a legendary novelist. As more deaths occur and the killer closes in on her, Kay finds herself also having to deal with the unexpected reappearance of long-lost lover Mark James. Scarpetta soon finds herself living Beryl's nightmare. Benton Wesley - FBI Profiler. "Benton Wesley could be as Prussian as the rest of them, but over the years he had won my respect. Beneath his Bureau boilerplate was a human being worth knowing. He was brisk and energetic, even when he was sitting, and he was typically dapper in his dark suit trousers and starched white shirt. His necktie was fashionably narrow and perfectly knotted, the black holster on his belt lonely for its ten-millimeter, which he almost never wore indoors. I hadn't seen Benton Wesley for a while and he hadn't changed. He was fit and handsome in a hard way, with premature silver-gray hair that never failed to surprise me."
Dr. Kay Scarpetta was born in Miami, Florida, in 1954. She is of Italian descent on both sides of her family, with the Scarpettas emigrating from Verona, Italy. She is blonde and a sharp dresser, although always professional. As a young girl, she watched her father die slowly from leukemia and the experience has remained with her ever since, translating into her everyday work life, where she is surrounded by death. She is a perfectionist, an incredibly hard worker completely immersed in her work. Scarpetta loves to cook, particularly Italian food. She makes everything from scratch, including pasta and bread, and has a beautiful, custom-built restaurant kitchen in her home.
She was married once, to Tony Benedetti; they divorced about 6 years before the beginning of the first novel set in 1986, Postmortem. Since then she had a serious relationship with Mark James, who died in a bombing in a London Tube station (in the novel Cruel and Unusual) and later Benton Wesley, who was supposedly killed in Point of Origin but later reappeared. In 2007's The Book of the Dead, Scarpetta and Wesley become engaged. By the beginning of 2008's Scarpetta, Benton and Kay are married.
In addition to a large custom-built house that includes a restaurant kitchen, a great room, and a mud room, Scarpetta also drives a new Mercedes, which she replaces often: in one case, after Lucy wrecks it, and in another after it is involved in the murder of her morgue assistant. (He is not killed in it but near it.) She can't bear to drive it after his death, so she trades it in for a nearly identical car.
In the early novels Scarpetta is the Chief Medical Examiner for the Commonwealth of Virginia and works in Richmond. She resigns after the events of The Last Precinct and relocates to Florida to become a private forensic consultant. Scarpetta returns to Virginia in Trace, convincing herself that she was fired from her position, at the request of her replacement, Dr. Joel Marcus. In Predator, Scarpetta becomes the head of the National Forensic Academy in Hollywood, Florida, a private institution founded by her wealthy niece Lucy. In The Book of the Dead, Scarpetta has relocated as a freelance forensic examiner/expert to Charleston, South Carolina. In Scarpetta(2008), she has relocated to Massachusetts, where she is an M.E., but she and Benton also share an apartment in New York City. In The Scarpetta Factor (2009), she is working full-time and Wesley is working part-time in New York.
The name Scarpetta is a diminutive, meaning "Little Shoe", as revealed in the 2009 novel The Scarpetta Factor. This novel points out that the underlying pun is similar to the name of Caligula. whose name means "Little Boot" in Latin. The novel features a website named Caligula, which is involved indirectly in the murder of a young woman. Enjoyed second read very much!! -
This is the second Kay Scarpetta murder mystery, and I found it even better than the first one, if only because the killer did not come out of nothing, but was previously mentioned in passing earlier in the book. (Scarpetta observes in this book that murder does not happen in a vacuum; everything is connected somehow. And that is also how murder mystery novels should be.)
It is 1987, a year after the previous book; Kay Scarpetta is still the Chief Medical Examiner for Virginia, Pete Marino is now a Lieutenant Detective (giving him even more freedom to be Scarpetta’s personal go-to policeman), and Benton Wesley is still an FBI Profiler. Scarpetta makes the post-mortem acquaintance of Beryl Madison, a minor novelist who has written her books under various pen names rather than under her real name. Madison is also the protégé of Cary Harper, who wrote one novel twenty years before that won the Pulitzer Prize, and who has lived an extraordinarily reclusive life since, refusing to give interviews and not writing. Madison apparently lived with Harper and his sister for many years; and there are rumors that the book she was working on was autobiographical, which would cause a sensation in the writing world.
However, Madison was also being stalked; she fled to Key West, then returned to Richmond some months later, promptly being brutally murdered in her house mere hours after her return. No novel was found, only two photo-copied letters she had written while in Key West to someone named “M.” In the course of her investigation Scarpetta makes the re-acquaintance of an old flame, one whom she loved to distraction much more than he loved her, and finds herself being sued by an entertainment lawyer for having “stolen” the novel Madison had been writing. Things get even more complicated, and Scarpetta finds herself being stalked, apparently by Madison’s killer.
This was a very good book, and I very much enjoyed reading it; but I will give Scarpetta a rest, and read one of the hundreds of books I own that I have not read yet before I return to her. -
Dr. Kay Scarpetta, Virginia Chief Medical Examiner is again in the middle of mysterious murders and personal vendettas!
Lieutenant Pete Marino summons Scarpetta to the house of shy fiction writer and murder victim, Beryl Madison. Blood is everywhere. Knife wounds are like that, especially when deep defense injuries are dripping while the victim is trying to run away down a hallway and up a stairway, down another hall and into her bedroom. Oh well. She didn't suffer much pain after bleeding out from having her throat cut.
Kay's is preoccupied thinking about the forensic clues in the Madison killing as she returns to her house when she hears her telephone ringing. She is stunned into silence after rushing to answer it by a voice from her past. It is Mark James, the love of life who got away after college. Kay has to sit down. It has been fifteen years, but she never got over him. Why is he calling?
She invites him over to her house. She is flustered. He is as handsome as she remembered, and she finds she still has it bad for him. Then, after small talk, he say, "A woman was murdered here in Richmond a couple of nights ago. Beryl Madison..."
Whaaaaat?
He wants to know if she has Madison's manuscript, a memoir about her famous mentor, the novelist Cary Harper. There was a contract signed by Madison eight years ago promising to never write about Harper, but she has gone ahead and finished a book about Harper after all. Threats were made, so Madison hired a lawyer, Robert Sparacino. Soon after, Madison began to get weird phone calls. As it happens, Mark is working for Sparacino. Now, speaking for himself, he'd appreciate it if she would stay out of the ongoing case.
Sure, yeah. Like that's going to happen.
I didn't think 'Body of Evidence' book two in the Scarpetta series, was as sharply done as the previous book, but I still was entertained! -
Basic Plot: a writer of historical romances is found murdered, and Kay Scarpetta is on the case again.
I used to teach this installment of the Scarpetta series as the example of the "mystery" genre in a novels class.
Considering the fact that I taught this book, I remember it fairly well, even years after reading it. The pacing was good and there were plenty of red herrings that I used to love to use to torture my students with. If I have any complaints about it, they lie in the fact that the "big reveal" completely comes out of left field. I like to read clues through a story and figure things out with (before if possible) the main character, and this book didn't allow for that. This is dangerously close to a spoiler, so I'm stopping the description there.
I like Kay as a character: logical, older, and a bit pudgy. She's relatable to me and not a "perfect" person. This 2nd book in the series allows the character to grow a bit from the first volume and readers also get to see more of her back story. -
So I liked the book but I think that has more to do with the characters than the actual story. Scarpatta and Marino’s relationship is just too much fun in how much they respect each other but yet can irritate the hell out of each other at the same time.
There were too many similar to the first book that bothered me. The two main things are that yet again Scarpetta’s office is made to look bad with her superiors and the media and the her romantic partner is a main part of the mystery.
I was really intrigued by the murder mystery and it grabbed me right from the beginning but I felt like the author didn’t know how to wrap it up so it ended very anticlimactically and all the loose ends were tied up a little too neatly. The mystery is really two stories in one and one story almost overwhelms the book when the other story seemed to have more impact on the outcome.
I look forward to the next one. The narrator of CJ Critt did an excellent job with the characters I loved Marino’s voice the most. -
I remembered a lot of this story; I remembered who the killer was, not by name but by profession, and how said killer got into Beryl's house. I remembered useless little moments so it was like having bits of deja vu while listening to Scarpetta's adventures.
I did not, however, remember being disappointed in how silly Dr. Scarpetta was becoming by this, the second book in the series, doing dumb stuff so that she could land in Situations.
While I absolutely love the throwback technology - I remember it all so well! - I do not at all appreciate the throwback mindsets, especially about gay men.
I can't say I would have had any problems with that when I first read this book because my mindset was very similar.
But like I said in my review for the first in the series, this hasn't aged well.
I like to think my discomfort with many parts of this story shows that maybe I, on the other hand, have. -
DNF at Page 130. I didn't connect with the plot neither with the characters. Scribd.com's English text, and translation for Portuguese + audio in English from Google Translate. Continuing the Project Learning English by myself.
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Author, Beryl Madison flees Key West when a terrifying message is scratched on her car.
Kay Scarpetta pursues the case of, "Who murdered Beryl Madison and why."
What a great series. The action is exciting, the plot is moving, and the characters are intriguing. Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta is a likable character. Her high-tech forensic skills enable her to collect a body of evidence.
Even though Beryl is murdered, her life lives on. During the investigation, it's like she's there. I loved the way the author weaved the real-time with the case. The mystery stayed to the very end and what and ending. I look forward to the next book in the series.
