BOOK REVIEW--"Port Mortuary" by Patricia Cromwell

Reviewed by Bill Breakstone, January 3, 2011

Port Mortuary is the latest novel in the Kay Scarpetta Series by Patricia Cromwell. The title refers to the Medical Examiner’s Office that receives (thus “port”) and autopsies victims of fatal accidents, natural deaths, combat mortalities (in the case of military “ports”, such as the one located at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware), and homicides. Scarpetta fans will not be disappointed by this latest installment, though I found it to be not among Cromwell’s best efforts.

The plot is complicated in the extreme, though not difficult to follow. The regular cast of characters is all present: Kay; her niece Lucy; her husband Benton Wesley; her old sidekick Pete Marino; and her assistant chief Jack Fielding. The literary problem is that they are all getting to be old hat, their actions and attitudes all too familiar and expected after approximately eight Scarpetta novels.

The crimes involved are centered around nanotechnology being developed by an experimental Boston-area laboratory that is partially funded by the United States government and military, and whose employees include scientific geniuses from nearby Harvard University and MIT. However, it is not until the last 75 pages of the novel that the true identity of the killer is revealed, and by that point any theories the reader may have of what’s behind the killings is blown out of the water.

My other objection is that the book is just too wordy, and the action almost non-existent. There is too much psychological analysis of the principal heroes and not enough narrative dealing with the crimes themselves. When the climax is reached near the end of the novel, it is too abrupt and lacking in narrative explaining the motivation of the killer.

All that being said, it was an enjoyable read, though the ending proved a major disappointment to this reader.