Psychological

(2005)Scarpetta's new team in Lucy's private crime investigation company try to pull together seemingly unconnected apparent suicides that turn out to be the result of murder by a person with multiple personalities.allreaders.com: In Predator Patricia Cornwell has returned to the form which made her earlier novels about forensic pathologist Kay Scarpetta so successful. The plot is tight with sufficient threads to keep the reader guessing until the end. Her recurring characters remain true to their personas while allowing a little mellowing. Paranoia still reigns in the lives of all the primary characters, Kay Scarpetta, her niece Lucy, Scarpetta's long time love interest Benton Wesley, and her chief investigator and former cop Pete Marino.Benton is in Massachusetts doing research on serial killers, trying to determine if there are physical elements to their criminal behavior that is measurable by brain activity. The study has been named PREDATOR. Scarpetta is in Hollywood, Florida working for Lucy's National Forensic Academy. Lucy is in Provincetown investigating the death of a neurosurgeon and allows herself to be picked up in a bar by a woman who has red handprints painted on her breasts and thighs.One of Benton's subjects, convicted serial killer Basil Jenrette, tries to impress the stoic psychologist by telling him of the murder he committed years ago of a woman in a Christmas shop in Florida, a murder unknown to the authorities. Did it really happen or is his subject simply toying with him? Benton is then called away from his research to view the autopsy of a woman found near Walden Pond who has been murdered with a shotgun blast to the head and has red handprints in suggestive places on her body. A piece of evidence from this murder is matched to an old case in Florida and a gun now in the possession of the National Forensic Academy.Pete Marino gets a late night phone call from someone calling himself Hog, quoting scripture, referring to the dead neurosurgeon, a family in Hollywood, Florida that has gone missing, and Scarpetta and Lucy. An intern at the National Forensic Academy has gotten Lucy's password to her security system and is wreaking havoc and creating an environment of distrust between Scarpetta, Marino, and Lucy. Lucy has a secret of her own. Marino's television psychiatrist is obsessed with Scarpetta and Benton, eliciting information about them from Marino during their counseling sessions.Scarpetta and Marino investigate the disappearance of the missing family. Information is being leaked about this case and others. Someone seems to know their every move. The killer seems to move among them with equanimity and cunning. Are the crimes of the dead woman in Massachusetts and the missing family in Florida related? Is there a link with a missing woman and her daughter from the Christmas Shop years ago? Are they dead or did they simply run off?A concerned neighbor of the missing family in Hollywood calls to complain that nothing is being done. Marino arrives on her doorstep to find her dead of a shotgun blast to the head and to the realization that this half blind senile old lady, a Polish immigrant who would have had a heavy accent, couldn't possibly be the person who called. A citrus inspector has been seen across the canal in the victim's backyard by Scarpetta at the time the old woman was probably killed. As the body count begins to mount, so does the number of possible murderers. "

Credit where credit is due: I hate books written in the present tense AND I went into this book expecting a forensic mystery.

That being said, the pacing was terrible, the book was so overstuffed that at one point, in the middle of discussing a crime scene we get step by step details of the main character cooking a risotto and the most minute of characters (characters who were mentioned on less than two pages) were given names and personalities. The ending was the most trite thing imaginable and several plot holes were left unfilled.

By far, the best thing about this book was the forensics -- full of luminol and superglue fuming; however, forensics took a far back seat to the life details of every minor character. ( )

I definitely think you need to start at the beginning with this series as I felt I was missing background on some characters. That being said it was very enjoyable, well paced and suspenseful, yet another long series added to my reading list! ( )

Scarpetta, que ahora trabaja independientemente en la Academia Nacional Forense de Florida, investiga un caso más extraño que cualquiera que haya enfrentado, uno que ha producido no solo evidencia física inusual, sino también pistas tentadoras sobre el funcionamiento interno de una mente extremadamente astuta y criminal.