Poor ole Berryl Madison and how she died, why did she let the killer in? You will have to read it and find this one out. Cornwell's style of writing is graphic and intense and I like that! I don't think Kay Scarpetta ever gets to rest with all the murder's that goes on. She is great at what she does and that is why her work load stays busy. Cornwell you out did yourself on this book it was great!

The best authors are the ones that can start a series with a bang and have the follow-up novel be just as good as the first. Patricia Cornwell more than succeeds with this sequel to Postmortem.

Reclusive author Beryl Madison has been receiving threats from a deranged stalker for months. She's changed her habits, screened her calls, and finally fled Richmond, Virginia for sunny Key West, all in an attempt to escape her own personal hell. However, reality intrudes when her funds run out and she is forced to return home. On the eve of her arrival she is met with disaster when her stalker finally makes his move, tricking her into letting him in and then toying with her until finally killing her. And this is where Dr. Kay Scarpetta enters the story. Feeling for the woman and the helplessness she must have felt, Kay knows that there is more to this crime than meets the eye. But will she be able to uncover what the truth is?

This is one of the strongest follow-up novels I have ever read, and I would recommend that any fans of the first definitely pick this one up.

I thouroughly enjoyed the book. Patricia Cornwell leads you from page to page. It is hard to put down. A great holliday read.

I haven't read a great deal of Patricia Cornwell, despite the fact that she is arguably the most successful crime writer alive in terms of sales. BODY OF EVIDENCE is the second Kay Scarpetta novel, written all the way back in 1991. I thought it was just an okay read.

Seventeen years ago, BODY OF EVIDENCE was probably considered quite cutting edge for its time. In this book, Kay Scarpetta is a chief medical examiner who utilizes a great deal of forensic science to discover the identity of a serial killer. Before shows like CSI, this type of plotline was probably a breath of fresh air.

BODY OF EVIDENCE holds up okay, but it ultimately resembles an episode of a rather forgettable forensic TV series. The murder plot is decently constructed, although way too convoluted for my tastes. This relatively short book has a large number of subplots, and I didn't think that Cornwell did a particularly good job of connecting all of these plots together in a tight, coherent package.

Still, it's hard to deny that Cornwell is a fine wordsmith, and there's some awfully good writing here that's far above the norm. Despite this fact, there's something about her writing style I find off-putting -- it's most likely the remarkably dark view she possesses of human nature. Almost all the characters in this book are psychopathic, psychologically dysfunctional, bigoted, corrupt, or ethically compromised in some fashion or another. It doesn't help that heroine Scarpetta is relatively dour, humorless heroine for much of this novel's storyline.

I plan on reading a few more of Cornwell's Scarpetta books to see if they get any better. I liked BODY OF EVIDENCE slightly more than the first Scarpetta novel, POST MORTEM, but not by much.

Although Ms. Cornwell is wordy, and sometimes it's irritating, I feel she weaves quite a tale. This book is interesting and a definite page-turner, if only to bypass the descriptions and needless explainations for the nitty-gritty "that's what I read Cornwell for" stuff!!

I've read every book in the Scarpetta series and I feel as though I could visit Kay, Lucy, Pete, etc. if I happened to find myself in Richmond. Ms. Cornwell is always a treat!