This is by far the best of the later Scarpetta novels.

That annoying grown up Lucy/Kay dynamic is not as central and mind-numbingly repetitive and boring as it is in several other of the later books. (I mean, could that Lucy character be ANY more blandly self-obsessed?)

Despite bein built around the ridiculous antagonist from the silly wolfman book set in Paris, this time around he's used to much better and more persuasive effect--for the first 3/4 or 4/5 of the book. Then, as so often happens in Cornwell's later books, the whole story is wrapped up in a matter of a few pages with a couple of utterly implausible or deus ex machina like plot developments.

It starts really strong but then wimpers to a close. The publisher's deadline for the finished manuscript must have been approaching.