Virginia's chief medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta is getting ready for a romantic holiday with her retired-FBI-profiler boyfriend, Benton Wesley, when she receives a cryptic and foreboding letter: "Hey DOC, Tick Tock, Sawed bone and fire," it begins. Even more creepy, the taunting note has been signed by Carrie Grethen, the psychotic killer Kay helped send to a psychiatric facility for going on a murder spree with Temple Gault in Cornwell's earlier book Body Farm. Benton believes that Grethen--who also happens to be the former lover of Scarpetta's niece Lucy--has big plans for a comeback. And before Kay and Benton can leave for their trip and discuss it further, Scarpetta is called upon to don yet another professional hat, that of a "consulting forensic pathologist" for the federal government. Someone has burned a highfalutin horse ranch and all of its contents, including a human being, to the ground. Worse, Grethen has escaped and is on the loose and closer to Kay and her beloved than she knows. Point of Origin, the ninth Scarpetta thriller, is classic Cornwell: rich with detail and strong dialogue, and doused with harrowing twists.
A slow start leading to an amazing second half (Rating 5 of 5)
» KM
'Point of Origin' is the ninth book in the Kay Scarpetta series written by Patricia Cornwell and begins when a fire burns down a farmhouse, killing a woman and a stable full of horses. Just after Kay travels to the scene to investigate the grisily deaths, she hears that her old nemesis Carrie Grethen, the psychopathic, evil partner of serial killer Temple Gault, has escaped from the maximum security insane asylum in New York where she has been held since her capture 5 years ago. With the investigation into the dead woman in the fire, as well as being in pursuit of Carrie, Kay is facing one of her toughest challenges yet and the bodies keep mounting up - including one that comes as a life-changing shock to Kay, but giving her even more motivation to catch the twisted killer.
The first 200 pages of this book are extremely slow and even becomes quite boring, but then Cornwell picks up her pace halfway through and finishes off this book as one of the best she has written yet. If you're familiar with the rest of the books in the Scarpetta series you'll find some massive shocks in this novel with some twists that throws the overall storyline of the series into a whirlwind of surprises and excitement that could set the next few novels in a completely new direction. The forensic detail is as acurate as always and the investigation really gets exciting once it gets going. Unfortunately the killer is fairly obvious (it pretty much tells you on the first page!) and the slow start may put some readers off, but my advice would be this - stick with it! Overall it does turn out to be one of the best in the series yet - easily up there with my favourites, Postmortem and From Potter's Field. Highly recommended to regular Cornwell readers but newcomers to the series should perhaps really read the earlier novels first to really appreciate this great book.
How devestatingly exciting! (Rating 5 of 5)
» Marley T
I have just finished reading this book and after a slow start, I was yet again completely gripped by Cornwell's story. Silly as it may sound, I got into it so much I almost cried at the end. I am glad I don't read any spoilers so one of the main character's death came as a very unwanted suprise but that's what's good about most of her books - that something unexpected happens. I liked this book better than the first two but my favourites still are the Temple Gault ones.
Point of Origin (Rating 5 of 5)
» G. Allan
Patricia Cornwell started of with Postmortem and has carried on to write in an enthralling, chilling, gripping and "can't put down" manner. Point of Origin continues with the great Dr Kay Scarpetta, Benton, Lucy and the excellent Marino. In Point of Origin the terryfing killer Cathy Grethen is back and full of revenge leaving an absolutely heartbreaking ending. This is a must for all readers and I fully recommend this be read before any follow up books.
Point of Origin (Rating 3 of 5)
» Rich Milligan
Looking at the other reviews posted here, it's pretty clear that opinions of this book fall into two distinctive categories. There are those who loved the book and welcome it into the series of Scarpetta detective novels, and those that are really disappointed with it and feel that Cornwell is either not developing her characters enough, or developing them in the wrong way. Which is why I'm going to sit very firmly on the fence!
In fact I wholeheartedly agree with the later group of critics, Scarpetta has developed into such a driven and exacting personality that she is almost becoming robotic in he attitudes to all walks of life. The fact that she is career minded or practical about most things I can accept, the fact that she is becoming demanding, belittling, downright rude and unfriendly to all she meets is a little harder to accept. If I were her assistant Fielding, I'll tell he where to stick her sharpest scalpel and look for a new job. This woman must be the biggest nightmare in the world to work for!
Niece Lucy just hasn't developed at all. Professionally she changes from book to book, learning a new skill as determined by whatever situation Cornwell wants to place her is. One moment she's single handily created the first virtual intelligence robot, next she's flying helicopters for the ATS! What next? Developing a cure for cancer? Breaking the world 100 metres record? And anyway how can such a needy, moaning and winging person be such a professional success? "Ohhh nobody likes me!" weeps the young, beautiful, talented Lucy! "Someone as gifted as Lucy is always going to be lonely" pities Auntie Scarpetta! Well welcome to the real world ladies, now shut up or put up!
My other major gripe with Cornwell is the pages and pages of detailed technical information as if to impress us. She's bombarded us with enough post-mortem facts to cheese off even the most dedicated fan so she turns to a different aspect, in this book's case, Fire Examination and gives us enough reams of procedural particulars to sink a ship. Boring!
But, there again, I also wholeheartedly agree with the fist section of fans. This is still a book I whipped through in a couple of sittings. It never lost my attention and I was hooked to find out what happened all the way to the end, and I have no doubts that in a couple of weeks I'll be picking up the next one in the series.
I can only hope that now with old woman Benton out of the way, (sorry Kay, but let's face it you weren't exactly cut up about the whole affair) we'll be treated to a new and interesting character! Long Live Marino, she's single again now Pete, go for it Sunshine!
A great read (Rating 5 of 5)
» R. MERCER
I enjoyed this book tremendously. It was much better than it's predecessor in the series. I found it difficult at first to get used to the idea that Lucy was no longer an FBI agent, but was now working for ATF. However, as the book progressed it all started to fall into place. I thought this one was especially sad as well, however I get the feeling that Benton may not be gone for good. Definately worth reading!
(Rating 5 of 5)
(Rating 3 of 5)
