Oh good grief. I hadn't read a Patricia Cornwell book in a while, because I found her main characters either unpleasant know it alls (Kay Scarpetta, Lucy Farinelli, and Benton Wesley) or stereotypical rednecks (Pete Marino, who could be a spokesman for "regular people", he certainly was in the earlier books).

Well not much has changed in this book. Scarpetta, Farinelli and Wesley have still gotta nerd uncommunicatively with each other, while Marino has seems to be the only character to show any growth in personality, having given up trying to reign Scarpetta in directly, and decided to speak to Scarpetta's superiors to bounce her into things that need to be done.

The book itself sees Scarpetta come to the end of her 6 month secondment with the army (she had signed up years a go pay for college, and has been recalled at the age of 56, because that happens), just after she had set up a cross-agency forensic lab in Boston (because, of course the FBI wouldn't mind that happening). On her return, she finds that the lab has gone to hell, her deputy chief has gone missing, a report on the death of a young boy doesn't make sense, and of course only Wesley, Farinelli, Marino and her can solve the case.

It has the potential to be an okay read, it's just... Scarpetta has to be just about the worst manager of people I've ever come across. She has no empathy for people less able than her, assumes that no one in the office has a work-life balance, and appoints people to posts who a demonstrably unsuitable for the job. Couple that with the fact that she is paranoid (everyone is out to get her), and she's not the easiest person to like. Certainly I've given up trying. Had this, and another book by Scarpetta not been in my "unread pile" I wouldn't have read it.