I have come to realize that I keep reading Kay Scarpetta novels-- and I always will-- is the same reason that these are no longer amazing procedural mysteries. Oh, they *were* back when the series started; they were excellent genre mysteries about an embattled medical examiner solving crimes. Now they're a soap opera. You read them to find out what is going through the mind of the main character and the supporting characters. The murders are really a MacGuffin. They must be-- Cornwell spends nearly a hundred pages on the characters before anything in particular happens in this book. And yet because I like these characters, I love reading the latest entry.

Sometimes I wish Cornwell would start a second series of the same characters in non-connected, genre procedurals, the way Marvel comics creates multiple series of the same characters, some episodic, some soapy. But Cornwell has chosen to write a long soap opera, and for me, that's okay.