I had almost given up on this series, which centers on medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta. I had come to really enjoy the earlier novels. She started her career in state service in Virginia, moved to the Carolinas for a short time to work with her niece, Lucy, and now she is working out of Boston. She and the rest of the characters usually get drawn into murder mysteries and must work to solve them. Her companions include her now-husband Benton Wesley, the earthy Detective Pete Marino, her lesbian & techie niece Lucy Farinelli, among others.

Kay and the gang are pulled in to investigate when a gentleman named Oscar Bane is being accused of murdering his girlfriend. Both Oscar and his girlfriend, Terri, are little people. Oscar has signed himself into Bellevue Hospital, which specializes in care for the mentally ill in Manhattan.

Oscar, an instructor of the hisotry of psychology, is asking for Kay in the hopes that by talking to her and bringing her in on the case that he will be exonerated. He seems to believe that both he and his girlfriend were being stalked, and that whoever was doing that was responsible for his girlfriend's death. This is surprising since all the initial findings point toward his guilt.

The book also allows Cornwell to help her characters recover from the shocking end of the previous book in the series Book of the Dead. Each of them comes to terms with what happened at the conclusion, and this allows them to recover what had once been a tight-knit family.

I know the reviews were pretty tough on this one, as they have been with most of Cornwell's recent books, but I saw a lot of what I liked about her earlier books in it. It was an interesting case. The characters were well-drawn and developed while also being able to focus on the details of what was going on. My only complaint is that I thought this 500-page tome could have been a bit thinner. There were times when Cornwell became a little repetitious with the content, and her editors should have convinced her of the positive effects of tighter righting. There may have been a few too many subplots and side-characters meant to distract the reader (think red herring). With that said, I was never bored.

On an interesting side note, (according to ABC News) it appears that Fox 2000 has purchased the movie rights to the series and will be having Angelina Jolie starring in the role of Kay Scarpetta.