Another good read. Complex plot about a man on death row, the woman he murdered 10 years earlier and the efforts of people in power to hide their story. Bit gruesome in places but PC obvious researches things very thoroughly. ( )

Not a bad story, the plot was pretty good, the characters ok. But something was missing, as with the entire series I’ve read so far...it’s hard to describe, but it’s just that feeling of wanting to read more. Nothing in this series makes me want to continue it, but I do just due to the fact that I have a few of them...when they are done, back to the used bookstore they will go and I won’t look back ( )

Ronnie Joe Waddell va a ser ejecutado por un crimen horrible y la doctora Scarpetta, particularmente inquieta frente a este hecho, espera para realizar la autopsia. Pocas horas después de la ejecución, la policía encuentra en la calle el cadáver de una adolescente con heridas similares a las que mostraba la supuesta víctima de Waddell.

Terrific characters, fast pace, and snappy dialogue make this a page-turner. Now I am eager to read the rest of the series! ( )

Patricia Cornwell’s early novels featuring Dr Klay Scarpetta, Chief Medical Examiner for the State of Virginia, were great commercial and critical successes. They combined detailed insight into forensic procedures with well-constructed plots and highly plausible characters. This was the first on them that I read, shortly after it was published in the early 1990s, and I was sufficiently impressed to go back and read the preceding volumes in the series, and then to await its successors.

With the benefit of hindsight, I view this as perhaps the last of the good books in the series – hereafter, I think that the quirks of some of the characters began to predominate, to the detriment of the books as a whole.

Reading it again nearly thirty years later, this still seems a good plausible novel – even the advances in the various avenues of technology that feature don’t detract from the impact of the novel. ( )