The Scarpetta Factor by Patricia Cornwall

Paperback 2009, 572 pages
November 5, 2010. UA862 Enroute HKG-SFO.

Five letters sum up this novel: A-W-F-U-L.

I vaguely recall the character Kay Scarpetta, but I can’t possibly forget if I had ever read a novel that is so awful. The story’s many main characters are Scarpetta, a volunteer medical examiner; Benton her husband; Lucy her niece and a computer wizard among other things; Jaime the DA and Lucy’s lover; and Marino the cop who was Scarpetta’s ex-lover. The last characterization is uncertain, and brings to mind one of the writer’s many annoying and flawed techniques. There are lots of flash backs that the reader may think will eventually resolve but end up being dead weight (i.e., make the novel longer without adding much to it other than confusion).

Other literary skills (trespasses really) fully utilized in the novel are interleaving several things all at once by devoting short paragraphs to each in turn; using many sentences to describe one simple thing that’s is not germane to the story (e.g., a staircase); and using a simple narrative to try to outline the real plot since the author seems incapable of putting the real excitement into action.

At the end you simply have a deranged killer (Chardonne) who ended up being shot dead at the end of the story. If the story is condensed into a novelette of 100 pages it may be worth a read. But at close to 600 pages, that’s simply the work of a writer with illusions of being a literary novelist, and one who couldn’t let any thought go to waste at that.

Since I am writing this inside a plane, I can’t go back and see how bad this book is compared to other atrocious ones I have read. I’m sure it will take the cake, hands down.