The heroine is Dr. Kay Scarpetta, the Chief Medical Examiner in Virginia. Oh, no, you say, another Ouincv. Wrong, corpse-breath. Scarpetta is intelligent, short, (we don't know whether she is attractive or not, a relief) and she doesn't swoon over each drooling Sylvester Stallone imitation that happens by. (That's something I've always wondered about: How does Travis McGee, the blue-Rolls-Royce-truck-driving hero of John MacDonald's colored-titled novels avoid AIDS, since he seems to have the self-restraint of a male nymphomaniac?Anyway, Scarpetta is investigating the murder of a well-known novelist who has returned from the Florida Keys where she has been hiding from someone who keeps threatening to kill her. The night of her return she inexplicably opens the door to the murderer who does just that. The plot thickens as her former boyfriend, a lawyer, appears on the scene worried about her safety and to prevent her (he says) from crossing swords with a crooked entertainment lawyer (redundancy?) who desperately wants the victim's last manuscript. The book is filled with fascinating detail such as the difference between dextromethorphan and levomethorpan which has to do with right and left and why one is legal and the other not. Enough about the plot.
