Review: Red Mist (Kay Scarpetta, #19) by Patricia Cornwell (Goodreads Author)

Red Mist by Patricia Cornwell
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

1,5 stars

I've been reading Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta Series since the 1st book, Postmortem was published, which was a brilliant start to the series, which continued with some really amazing books, until it reached #10……from then onwards, something happened to the series. And not a good something. Somewhere along the line, the magic of Kay Scarpetta’s world wasn’t there for me.

Instead of looking forward to a new arrival, I gave it a miss for a while. But I couldn’t give up on KS….hoping that maybe the next one would bring back the magic.

Well, Red Mist, #19 in the series did not ignite the old or new magic!!!

Nothing happens….from the opening where Kay is interviewing a woman who is connected to Kay’s former assistant, who had been viciously murdered by his daughter, whose mother was the woman in jail that Kay was visiting….it goes on and on for loads and loads of pages of the conversation between Kay and the prisoner….and never going anywhere.

Kay continues internalizing and internalizing and more internalizing…..giving us information and more information that after a while makes no sense to me……and leading somewhere I don’t know where.

Lucy continues to be weird ….i can’t get a hook on this character. Do I like her or don’t I like her? What is she all about??? Apart from her high IQ, hacking skills, loads of money, her own helicopter, supercars……

And Marino, Kay’s partner who has been with her since the beginning….continues being weird and weirder…..their interaction is beyond bizarre. Maybe it’s something to do with the fact that he’s still in love with Kay and she not…..would he be different if the two ever got it together, I wonder.

Benton, Kay’s husband. Another character I can’t figure out. He’s so remote most of the times. I would love to see a bit more romance between him and Kay. But he makes these fleeting appearances here and there…..and then disappears.

I skimmed over a lot of pages and when the true villain and the reason for the crimes are revealed I was somewhat disappointed. I never really understood how the conclusion came about.

I am so sad that the magic of Kay Scarpetta is still missing for me.

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