Review: Chaos by Patricia Cornwell

A Mysterious Review of Chaos by Patricia Cornwell. A Kay Scarpetta Mystery.

Review summary: The murder mystery in the latest entry of this long-running series is compelling and worth following, but the overall pace of the book is very slow and there are long passages where little of interest happens. Still, will likely not be disappointed to follow along with the investigation for a few surprises that await them. (Click here for text of full review.)

Our rating:

Chaos
Patricia Cornwell
A Kay Scarpetta Mystery
William Morrow (November 2016)

Publisher synopsis: On a hot late summer evening in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Dr. Kay Scarpetta and her investigative partner Pete Marino respond to a call about a dead bicyclist near the Kennedy School of Government. It appears that a young woman has been attacked with almost super human force.

Even before Scarpetta's headquarters, the Cambridge Forensic Center, has been officially notified about the case, Marino and Scarpetta's FBI agent husband Benton Wesley receive suspicious calls, allegedly from someone at Interpol. But it makes no sense. Why would the elite international police agency know about the case or be interested? With breathtaking speed it becomes apparently that an onslaught of interference and harassment might be the work of an anonymous cyberbully named Tailend Charlie, who has been sending cryptic communications to Scarpetta for over a week.

Stunningly, even her brilliant tech savvy niece Lucy can't trace whoever it is or how this person could have access to intimate information few outside the family would have. When a second death hundreds of miles south, shocking Scarpetta to her core, it becomes apparent she and those close her are confronted with something far bigger and more dangerous than they'd ever imagined. Then analysis of a mysterious residue recovered from a wound is identified as a material that doesn't exist on earth.