Thursday 30 July 2015

The Trial of 'Postmortem' by Patricia Cornwell (Kay Scarpetta #1)


*This review will contain spoilers* 

'Postmortem' was Patricia Cornwell's debut novel, released back in 1990. Reading this 25 years on, is it still relevant or is it quite obviously dated?

The novel begins with the murder of Lori Petersen - the fourth victim of a serial killer who is tormenting the Richmond area. The murderer's MO is exactly the same as in the first three cases; he ties his victims up, rapes them and kills them, then disappears without a trace. Dr. Kay Scarpetta is shaken up by Lori's murder because she was a medical student, and Kay struggles to get past the similarities in their lives up until this point.
Throughout the first half of the novel, a lot of time is spent introducing the characters. Kay gets the majority of the screen time as the protagonist, which is to be expected. A serious work-orientated woman, Kay has her niece, Lucy, staying with her at the time of the fourth murder and she ponders whether it's fair on the child to keep her around at such a trying time. Kay has never had a family of her own, much to the chagrin of her mother, and though she cares for Lucy she finds it difficult to juggle the position of surrogate mother with her hectic work life. A highly introspective character, she often finds herself losing her train of thought, and will fade out in the middle of a conversation just to be jolted back to awareness. 
As well as Kay's development, there is also a lot of focus on the character of Detective Marino - the chief investigator in charge of the case. Marino is a hard-ass: having worked in New York he knows his stuff, but he's also very affronted by the idea of being bossed around by a woman, making the dynamic between him and Kay frictional at least. Marino automatically assumes Lori Petersen's husband, Matt, is the murderer, and he quickly gets his mindset focused on proving his suspicions. 
Other than these two characters, there's quite a large supporting cast: Abby Turnball the scrappy journalist, Margaret the computer programmer, Wingo the gay autopsy technician, Rose the receptionist and Bill, Kay's romantic interest. These characters aren't fully-rounded, just popping up in the text as and when they are needed, but as this series is so long I'm assuming we will get more information and back story from them in the coming novels.
The second half of the novel focuses more on the discovery of the serial killer, culminating in a fast-paced action scene in the last twenty pages of the novel. The killer is discovered to be one Roy McCorkle, a twenty-seven year old man who worked as a 911 operator and dispatcher. Roy suffers from Maple Syrup Urine Disease, which causes a build-up of amino acids in the body and leads to the sufferer having a syrupy sickly smell surrounding them when they are under physical or emotional stress. Due to the nature of his crimes, McCorkle was stressed constantly while performing his ritualistic murders, and after dumping his jumpsuit in a nearby trash can the disease seems to be the only possible explanation for the scent emanating from it. Using his disease against him, Kay and Abby work together to craft a newspaper article that will coax the murderer to make a mistake, and that mistake is realised when McCorkle attempts to murder Kay and is shot down by Detective Marino. Case closed. 

Evidence:
The first time I read 'Postmortem', I absolutely loved it. It was the first book of this genre, the first book of this magnitude, that I had ever experienced and it hooked me from the first page, giving me nightmares every night while I was reading it. 
Now, it could be because this is a re-read, or because I have read a lot more crime fiction since the first time I read this novel, but I didn't find it nearly as effective the second time around. I couldn't remember any of the plot twists and turns, so I didn't have the ending spoiled for me, but it just didn't seem as well written as I once believed that it was. 
Take, for example, Kay. Constantly fading out in the middle of conversations: 'I'd been scarcely aware of his pulling off the road and parking' and 'I suddenly realized Marino was talking to me' being just two minor examples of a constantly recurring character flaw. Having a protagonist ruminate on their inner thoughts isn't a bad thing - in fact, it's probably necessary when we're all trying to work out who the serial killer could be - but if it interrupts with the flow of the storytelling and makes it feel as though we're stopping and starting constantly, it's not a positive thing. Similarly, Kay has very ingrained depreciating thoughts about men, meaning that at a few times in this novel it feels like she's taking criticism as being because she's a woman rather than because she might have messed up, which seems a bit incomprehensible in the face of some of the accusations thrown at her. 
As well as an annoying lead character, the discovery of the serial killer is a massive disappointment. Marino is convinced that the murderer is Matt Petersen, then he believes it may be Bill Boltz the boyfriend, but when it's eventually revealed that it's a character we've had no interaction with in the past it feels like a cheap escape clause. For someone who likes a cerebral read, trying to spot the red herrings against the genuine clues throughout the novel, to have no chance of guessing who performed the crime was a huge disappointment. It also feels as though the two previous suspects aren't investigated as thoroughly as they could be. At the end of the novel, we receive the information that Matt Petersen passed a polygraph, but because we don't get the information at the time it feels as though it's a loose end throughout. Similarly, Marino questions the likelihood of Bill being the murderer, but it never goes further than sheer speculation (despite the fact that he quickly goes on an impromptu holiday across country) and it would have been interesting to see that developed more thoroughly. 
Something else that hampered my enjoyment of the novel was that you could definitely feel how dated it was. I appreciated that in my first reading, but this time it felt clunky and the fact that DNA usage in crimes was only in the first stages means that if this book was written now the crime would definitely be solved a lot faster than it was. This book is a complete Zeitgeist to the early nineties: people smoke everywhere, there are a lot of inappropriate terms thrown around about the gay community (such as 'Maybe he was having an HIV test done on the sly. Good God, don't let him have AIDs' proving exactly how ignorant even the medical community were towards gay people two decades ago) and a lot of language that is verging on racist. It's definitely interesting to get in-depth information about the medical procedures that they're going through, but to get so much information about dumb monitors and the SQL database... Nowadays, computers are a lot more up-to-date and more people know common knowledge about them, so it seems a bit unnecessary on reflection.  

Verdict:
I enjoyed 'Postmortem' the first time I read it, but this time around it fell flat. That might be because it's a re-read, so I can't unconditionally state that if this was my first read I wouldn't have loved it. I recommend reading this novel because it's so famous - Patricia Cornwell is a household name, and this is the book that launched her career, so if you haven't read it before it's not something that you should just pass over. However, at this point in time I'm feeling rather disappointed, and I'm definitely apprehensive about continuing on with my Kay Scarpetta marathon (even though I'm obviously going to follow through!). 
I'm sentencing this book to a three star review. 

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