Chaos

A Scarpetta Novel

By: Patricia Cornwell

Narrated by: Susan Ericksen

Length: 13 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's summary

Number-one New York Times best-selling author Patricia Cornwell returns with the remarkable 24th thriller in her popular high-stakes series starring medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta.

In the quiet of twilight, on an early autumn day, 26-year-old Elisa Vandersteel is killed while riding her bicycle along the Charles River. It appears she was struck by lightning - except the weather is perfectly clear, with not a cloud in sight. Dr. Kay Scarpetta, the Cambridge Forensic Center's director and chief, decides at the scene that this is no accidental act of God.

Her investigation becomes complicated when she begins receiving a flurry of bizarre poems from an anonymous cyberbully who calls himself Tailend Charlie. Though subsequent lab results support Scarpetta's conclusions, the threatening messages don't stop. When the tenth poem arrives exactly 24 hours after Elisa's death, Scarpetta begins to suspect the harasser is involved and sounds the alarm to her investigative partner, Pete Marino, and her husband, FBI analyst Benton Wesley.

She also enlists the help of her niece, Lucy. But to Scarpetta's surprise, tracking the slippery Tailend Charlie is nearly impossible, even for someone as brilliant as her niece. Also, Lucy can't explain how this anonymous nemesis could have access to private information. To make matters worse, a venomous media is whipping the public into a frenzy, questioning the seasoned forensics chief's judgment and "a quack cause of death on a par with spontaneous combustion".

©2016 Cornwell Entertainment, Inc. (P)2016 HarperCollins Publishers

The Kay Scarpetta series is almost out of fuel

I remember Patricia Daniels in 1979 when she was a young reporter with our local news rag (the Charlotte Observer cannot be reasonably called a newspaper). After a year or so she was married and became Patricia Cornwell. The marriage did not last long, but she kept his name. When Patricia Cornwell released her first novel which was Kay Scarpetta book 1 titled Postmortem in 1990, I bought a copy and read it and liked it. Since then I have purchased and read or listened to a copy of every novel in the Kay Scarpetta series within a few weeks of release. I've followed Scarpetta from Richmond to Miami to New York to Boston as Marino, her investigator, followed her and as her niece Lucy grew from an early teen precocious kid to the very wealthy mid 30's techno force. I've read or listened to all 24 novels.

Along the way Cornwell has tried to keep the Scarpetta character fresh as Scarpetta moved around and along the way broke up FBI profiler Benton Wesley's marriage and married him herself. Wesley supposedly died for a couple of novels but returned unhurt after being in hiding.

I want to like Chaos and I did until the very end when Cornwell introduces an unnecessary twist that I really, really, really dislike. I so dislike it that I am downrating what was a 4 or 5 star novel to 3 stars. I may give up on Patricia Cornwell after 26 years because of what I see as a cheap literary trick, We shall see.

Susan Ericksen is a capable narrator and she did fine with Chaos.

Review

I have been reading these books for years. Kay has always been fiercely independent but she seems to be so angry all the time. Got old in this one.

Falls a bit short

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

This novel falls short of what I've come to expect from Cornwell. The feeling I got was that she rushed the writing. Resolutions to pieces of the puzzle came in narrative, not necessarily the voice of Scarpetta...at least the Scarpetta of previous novels. All of the characters in the novel were a bit "off." No depth to them in this novel. I wish I'd waited to buy when it was on sale somewhere. Sorry Patricia, I think that maybe (and I hate to say it), it may be time to put Scarpetta to rest.

If you’ve listened to books by Patricia Cornwell before, how does this one compare?

I've listened to all the Scarpetta books. The narrator of this novel is not the one I usually associate with the Scarpetta series. The narrator is actually the one used for J.D. Robb In Death series and was hard to reconcile Dr. Scarpetta when I hear the voice of Det. Eve Dallas. It takes away from the story.

Did the narration match the pace of the story?

see above comment

Do you think Chaos needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

A follow up only if it meets previous standards of character depth. this one falls short of the one before.

A chore to finish

I seem to remember enjoying a Kay Scarpetta book the past, but I certainly didn't enjoy this one. I found the dialogue heavy, too explanatory, slow moving and tedious. I thought that the narration was unnecessarily slow and over enunciated. The overall story itself was something that could've been put into a couple of chapters of a book rather than a whole book. Just way too slow moving.

Got lost in the details.

Too detailed, half the book was spent describing her walk to meet Benton for dinner, ordering dinner and getting to the crime scene. It was extremely boring in places.

Love Scarpetta!

Loved it! Love Patricia Cornwell's detailed writing, following Kay and Benson on endless adventures and learning more and more about Forensic Pathology.

Delightful!

Cornwall has done it again! She's amazing!! By far one of my favorites! I love her books and her stories!!!

Need some new villains

Now that Carrie has been put away for good, hopefully! This takes place in Massachusetts. So how about using a problem that Plagues a few counties within this state. an issue that feeds into making other issues 100 times worse in those counties alone. Like a corrupt DA's office.

loved it! great story and good ending !

loved the story and it had a great ending. didn't want to stop listening! great job by Patricia as always !!

What happened to Kate Reading?

I love Susan Erickson's narration of the J. D. Robb "In Death" series, but it was distracting to have her voice narrating another series, especially after hearing Kate Reading for so long. Otherwise, the book was excellent.