Book: Depraved Heart

Author: Patricia Cornwell

Genre: Fiction/Mystery

Summary: Dr. Kay Scarpetta is working a highly suspicious death scene in a historic home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, when an emergency alert sounds on her phone. A video link lands in her text messages, immediately begins playing...and it seems to be from her niece Lucy. But how can it be? It's clearly a surveillance film of Lucy taken almost twenty years ago. As Scarpetta watches she comes to grips with frightening secrets about her niece, whom she loves like a daughter. That first clip and others sent soon after raise dangerous implications that increasingly isolate Scarpetta and leave her confused, alarmed, and not knowing where to turn. She doesn't know whom she can tell - not her FBI agent husband, Benton Wesley, or her investigative partner, Pete Marino. Not even Lucy. Cornwell launched these unforgettable characters on an intensely psychological odyssey that includes the bizarre death of a Hollywood mogul's daughter, wreckage on the bottom of the sea in the Bermuda Triangle, a grisly gift left in the back of a crime scene truck, and videos from the past that threaten to destroy Scarpetta's entire world and everyone she loves. The diabolical presence and singularly "depraved heart" behind what unfolds seems obvious - but strangely, not to the FBI. Certainly that's the message they send when they start harassing Lucy and begin building a case that could send her to prison for the rest of her life. In the latest novel in her bestselling series featuring medical examiner, Dr. Kay Scarpetta, Cornwell captivates readers again with the jolting twists, high-wire tension, and cutting-edge forensic detail for which she is renowned, proving yet again why she is the world's number one bestselling crime writer. - Harper Collins, 2015. 

I won this book from a Goodreads giveaway. Depraved Heart was the first book I read by Patricia Cornwell. I was worried because it was the 23rd book in the Kay Scarpetta series. I could not get into the story. The book seem to be vague with a lot of dialogue and I was lost and could never seem to get what was going on. The author does bring some background information of what has happened before, but this is not a book to start the series.

Ok I've marked it as read but I've only read about 15% not even quite that. I don't know what this is but its nothing like a story. Garbled nonsense. It took me ages to work out what was actually HAPPENING in the first bit. Scarpetta walking to a thing, Marino yelling at her on the phone about a thing, or something. I'm still not clear on where she was walking TOO even though there was some rubbish about a lecture. I just don't get it. Then frankly I skipped forward a bit and still garbled there is no flow to it. I can't cope. Especially since there isnt even a case yet as far as I can see. Unless you count the lecture subject (Challenger) which seems to just be an excuse for people to be "after" Scarpetta again.

I keep getting dragged back in hopeful of some clarity from this once terrific author. I maybe should have stuck with it a bit more but frankly life is too short.

 I am enjoying the arc of Kay's realizing first that Lucy is perhaps not just a sociopath, but also may be a dangerous sociopath; and Kay's exploration of how badly she spoiled Lucy and indulged Lucy's narcissism.

Kay has avoided fully acknowledging these glaring dangers with the belief that Lucy is, when it comes to her loved ones, a weapon pointing outwards from their wagon circle. But now, Kay is facing the fact that isn't true.

She has also avoided facing head-on the fact that Lucy's ravens have and will come to roost. Every selfish, dangerous thing she has done, every emotionally or physically violent act, every careless relationship...and every time Kay has fixed it all for her (special treatment in the Quantico dorms, for example)... consequences are and have been coming due all along.

coming this autumn: no. 24, Chaos

I'm trapped in bed with Strep Throat and Kay Scarpetta. This is a serious who-done-it that is working for me on all levels. This the kind of procedural mystery for me. We have a bad guy and the good guys that have no connection with each other other than the chase.  Marino is becoming more well-rounded and I see a real partnership evolving between them without loosing the salt I think they both sprinkle in each other's wounds.