Red Mist is Patricia Cornwell’s 19th Kay Scarpetta mystery. Cornwell’s most famous character is a medical examiner. It has often been said that this fictional pathologist has influenced television shows like the CSI series. Dr. Scarpetta not only performs autopsies, but also solves the murders of the victims whose bodies she dissects. Scrapetta usually does this with the help of her husband, former FBI profiler Benton Wesley, her niece, Lucy Farinelli, a computer whiz and hacker supreme, and investigator Pete Marino.
In Red Mist Scarpetta leaves her home base of Cambridge, Massachusetts to interview Kathleen Lawler, an inmate of the Georgia Prison for Women. Many years before Lawler had an affair with twelve year old troubled youth, Jack Fielding. Fielding grew up to be Dr. Scarpetta’s Deputy Medical Examiner. He also is also the father of Lawler’s psychotic daughter, Dawn Kincaid. Kincaid murdered her father in Cambridge, Massachusetts six months before Red Mist begins. Scarpetta hopes Lawler will give her some understanding of the death of her Deputy.
Scarpetta does not know that she has been lured to Savannah, Georgia by former New York Assistant District Attorney, Jamie Berger. Berger wants Dr. Scarpetta to help exonerate Lola Daggerty, an inmate on Death Row who is accused of murdering the entire Jordan family.
I don’t want to give too much away, but the longer Kay Scarpetta stays in Savannah, the higher the body count becomes. Dr. Scarpetta does finally solve the murders, but not without a lot of confusing twists and turns and way too much technical forensic jargon.
As usual the book is narrated by Scarpetta. In Red Mist the good doctor seems especially verbose. She spends a good half of the 500 page book “summing up” events which occurred in the previous Scarpetta book, Port Mortuary. This does not help the reader understand the current murders. It just makes the plot more muddied and confusing.
Even without all the background information, Red Mist is a very convoluted mystery. Too many murders occur in too short of period of time. Red Mist makes me long for an Agatha Christie-type cozy, with just one juicy murder to concentrate all my attention on.
Cornwell also spends too much time dealing with Kay Scarpetta’s personal life. Patricia Cornwell is one of the leading authors of the literary school of “My protagonist is really me, with a few changes thrown in. I don’t actually have a medical degree or solve crimes.”
Much is made of Scarpetta having “daddy” issues. In the novels, Scarpetta’s father died from leukemia when she was young. In Cornwell’s real life, her father deserted the family on Christmas Day when Patricia was only five years old.
Kay Scarpetta is an interesting character, but in a mystery the plot is also very important. In future Scarpetta novels, Cornwell should work on streamlining her story. Fewer murders per book and especially less detailed forensic information would make for a more compelling mystery.
