Let’s face it, the mass of American readers is as predictable as the taste of vanilla pudding. So die-hard fans of Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta series (“The Last Precinct,” “Blowfly,” “Trace”), who have been hoping for a return to pro forma fixtures found in the early books of this series – lots of forensics and a return to form for characters like Lucy, Benton and Marino and even, in some ways, Scarpetta herself – no doubt will be crying foul with the newest novel in the series, “Predator.”
After all, Cornwell has already thrown them off their complacent, armchair games by uprooting her heroine from long-held Virginia roots and turning Scarpetta’s niece, Lucy, into a troubled, often self-pitying wreck. She has even made them believe that Benton was dead and – horrors! – changed the narrative voice from first-person to third.
Frankly, for those not doggedly devoted to Cornwell’s series, it was growing stale around the time that “Cause of Death” or “Unnatural Exposure” was published. So the plot shake-ups that began after “Black Notice” and the sudden switch from first to third person narration was a welcome injection of creative Sturm und Drang, something all series writers should practice now and then just to keep things fresh.
With “Predator,” Cornwell switches the focus from the “how’d he do it” of forensics, for which, if the plethora of cookie-cutter TV series is any indication, there remains a huge popular appetite, to the “why’d he do it”
psychological angle. And while a few growing pains are still present (the narrative momentum is a bit slow in building), it’s good to see Cornwell continuing to stretch her muscles, and “Predator” proves to be a fine psychological thriller.
Still in freelance mode, Scarpetta is working with PREDATOR files (Prefrontal Determinates of Aggressive-Type Overt Responsivity) in the offices of the National Forensic Academy in Florida. In Boston, a former lover of Scarpetta, Dr. Benton Wesley, is in charge of the PREDATOR research project. The project uses brain-imaging to compare the brains of normal folks with killers.
Benton has psychopath Basil Jenrette taking a turn inside an MRI. While already delving into the case of a murdered San Francisco doctor, Scarpetta is talked into helping with the case of two sisters and children who have gone missing from their Hollywood home.
As she is looking into this strange disappearance, Scarpetta learns of a similar abduction of an entire family – from a public shop. Simultaneously, Benton begins having concerns about Jenrette’s possible connections to some of the cases in progress and Lucy begins another lusty affair with a woman whose strange body-markings mirror those on one of the victims.
Cornwell takes the threads of these apparently disparate elements in “Predator” and manages to tie them all together; a substantial achievement that, in the end, makes for a solid and insightful psychological thriller that sports a nice little twist.
The various, increasingly messy relationships depicted between major characters, such as that between Marino and Scarpetta (Marino continues to harbor anger against Scarpetta for something in their past), and the new focus on the psychological aspect of compulsive criminals (once called “serial killers”) recalls the work of writers like Minette Walters or Thomas Harris.
And while Cornwell still has a way to go before reaching the literary high ground gained by those two writers, it’s great to see her striving for new heights.
Dorman T. Shindler, a freelance writer from Missouri, contributes to a number of national magazines and newspapers.
Predator
By Patricia Cornwell
Putnam, 416 pages, $26.95
