GREAT book! Patricia Cornwell is tops when it comes to medical-murder mysteries! I hope Kay Scarpetta never dies... I won't know WHAT to read!

All That Remains! It is a wonderful crafted and thrilling novel. Kay Scarpetta is great in this book as always. She is on the trail of a serial killer, and the murder's have been very gruesome. There is not much left of the bodies when they are found. This is a true thriller especially when a goverment offical's daughter and boyfriend comes up missing. Read it for yourself, you won't be disapointed at all.

Patricia Cornwell is a superb writer, but like all writers there are certain works that are better than others. In her cases, it's her early Kay Scarpetta novels. Happily, this is one of them.

Kay Scarpetta is confused. Young couples have been disappearing for years, only for their bodies to show up much later, badly decomposed and lacking forensic evidence. However, up until now, none of the victims have been well known. But when the daughter of a highly respected government official, and her boyfriend of course, goes missing, Kay knows this will get ugly very quickly. As the pressure to find the couple and stop the killer intensifies, Kay isn't sure who to trust or where to turn.

This is a wonderful suspense novel. With some truly creepy moments and a creeping atmosphere of paranoia, this a can't miss!

I love all the Scarpetta books by Patricia Cornwell. I have the series in hardback in my bookcase to share with interested family.

Kay Scarpetta. Richmond's Chief Medical Examiner, with a full house, and a lot of unsolved homicides. Among other things, she's a part of an ongoing investigation which seems to have no end in sight. Over the course of a few years, ten bodies have shown up, five couples, who's mysterious disappearances and eventual reveal prove nothing short of baffling to all those involved. The State of Virginia, the FBI and it's lead man, FBI Special Agent Benton Wesley, the local police, the State ME, no one can get a definitive clue as to who or why the killer stalks couples, kills them, then hides the bodies to be discovered months later. All they know is that whoever the killer is, he or she, who's plans with meticulous premeditation and efficiency, but has finally messed up. And unlucky.

The black luck of draw? Pat Harvey, the leading drug prevention politician with high hopes and high rising career. Until, that is, the newest victims of the Couples' Killer claims the life of her college-aged daughter, Deborah, and her boyfriend, Fred Cheney. Politics, backstabbing and highhanded powerplays ensue, still more perplexing and complicating confrontations arise, as the case twists and turns, leading Kay, and her detective partner in crime, Pete Marino, to avenues they never expected. Or dreamed would lead them exactly to the killer.

Good, bad, bleh. Cornwell weaves a pretty well-paced mystery thriller. The mystery element is complex and layered, though not necessarily creative--you've read a story-line like this before, or saw it in a movie. Cornwell, however, does a good job of keeping things on track and in order, with just enough of this and that, to make it plausible and interesting, and at least, not entirely predictable. The forensic element was marginal, and in fact, Kay is more like a detective sleuth with some knowledge in forensics, and her direct role and involvement in the active/ongoing investigation doesn't make much sense. I've read actual case files of pathologists as well as forensic anthropologists, but Kay seems to go way above and beyond what a normal scientist in that profession would do. Then again, Cornwell would have a less interesting tale to tell. If you've seen Bones, this is the book version of an episode or two--sorry Kathy Reichs, but Cornwell beat you to the punch in the writing department. There are a few familiar snippets that every forensic knowledgeable person seems to tell, tell again.

Characterization is woefully lacking, and little attraction to the characters who very casually rendered, though that's probably due to the serial element of this book. 90% of it was just dialogue of explanations and each character working out their own theories. While not bad, and Cornwell managed it, it was flat and made the characters rendered more like robots processing and then talking at one another, like a report. Since I read All That Remains out of sequence, I can only assume that in other books, she's rendered in a less sterile light. You won't feel like you're missing that much, minor histories, if you read it out of order because there is no in-depth forays into any of the character's live or thoughts, just a few 'emotional' scenes peppered throughout. The first quarter of the book was surprisingly dull, with the middle hitting high and then a lackluster ending. It was too rushed, somewhat chaotic and merely to just end the story, so it came off abrupt, like Cornwell realized she'd run out out time, space, ideas, and so, well, there's the ending.

The writing is very plain, bare bones and mostly descriptions, stoicly delivered, with little emotion or warmth. Everything is all laid out, no thinking required. It's very clinical how Cornwell tells the story, but because it moves along fairly quickly, drawing your attention to the whodunit, you may not notice. While I did read the whole thing relatively fast, by the end of it, I was wondering why. I know part of that is because the writing lacked any imagination or attempt to be more than a short buzz. It lacks something--and I'm still trying to figure that all. All the ingredients for a good book were there too, the formula was mostly well employed, and yet, I still wasn't really that impressed. Read it once for a quick read if you're bored and want to be pulled along without much thinking, and don't expect anything that mind blowing or witty or exciting.