Whipsaw Book

Patricia Cornwell portrays the relatable quirks of professional and personal life. The focus of Kay Scarpetta's morgue staff is mercifully not on that job but on what a day is like for them as people. In this series, it is fun to know the early internet well. I had PCs before most people and smile at the FBI's technical prowess in 1997. Computers had 8 mgs of RAM: the size of one JPG photo or MP3 song, in 2019 today! They connected to the internet like I do in rural Manitoba: via telephone modem. These novels are fantastic time capsules, spanning 1990 to 2016. I love the observable increase in modernity.

Each case is different, this one opening in Dublin and shifting to a Virginia island. However, prolific novels vary in quality. I gave this one two stars for expending detail on threads that were dropped and for a motive that was too trite for an act of horror. Lack of career advancement is not a plausible cause!

"Unnatural Exposure" has two mysteries: identifying dismembered torsos and why they contain smallpox; an old threat to humanity that vaccinations made extinct. That was interesting and urgent. The perpetrator taunted Kay by e-mail and the FBI pinpointed an empty location. Considering collaboration with the FBI, disease control quarantining the island, and unidentified victims: readers have the impression of a tough case to crack.

All that emphasis fell flat, for Kay to abruptly end up at the killer's house and see who it was. It was as if the combined forces dominating this novel were irrelevant. We do not learn if Ireland's victims had the same murderer. Animal testing was unapologetically discussed, despite attesting that results are inapplicable to humans. However, I own Patricia's other books, which I am sure to like better.