On the eve of a top secret space mission, Captain Calli Chase detects a tripped alarm in the tunnels deep below a NASA research center. A NASA pilot, quantum physicist, and cybercrime investigator, Calli knows that a looming blizzard and government shutdown could provide the perfect cover for sabotage, with deadly consequences. Crime reporting was aggressive in Richmond, an old Virginia city of 220,000, which last year was listed by the FBI as having the second-highest homicide rate per capita in the United States. It wasn’t uncommon for forensic pathologists from the British Commonwealth to spend a month at my office to learn more about gunshot wounds. It wasn’t uncommon for career cops like Pete Marino to leave the madness of New York or Chicago only to find Richmond was worse.

Postmortem plot summary - Books tldr Postmortem plot summary - Books tldr

Spiro Fortosis - professor of Criminal Psychiatry at University of Virginia. He and Kay know each other from the start of Kay's career. Kay Scarpetta is a fictional character inspired by former Virginia Chief Medical Examiner Marcella Farinelli Fierro MD (retired). [1] She is the protagonist in a series of crime novels written by Patricia Cornwell noted for its use of recent forensic technology in Scarpetta's investigations.She. Lori Petersen. Brown. Harvard. Brilliant. Thirty years old. About to have it all realized, her dream. After eight grueling years, at least, of medical training. A physician. All of it destroyed in a few minutes of a stranger’s aberrant pleasure. And I kept making concessions for the year, like yeah, I bet this DNA stuff was pretty impressive for 1990, and I can kinda understand why she's explaining all this basic PC computer crap...when your story is that tied to technology, of course the effort is going to feel dated at a later time. I worked some time for a computer forensics company, and I kept wondering about the time frame for technology in that field...how easy now to see who accessed what, when, from where, and exactly what they did with it. The story is good but not as tight as some of the later books. Having said that, and because of where we were at as crime readers, Cornwell imparts her knowledge of procedures, which can at times be a drag, but it is what it is. Then she receives news that chills her to the core: Jean-Baptiste Chandonne—the vicious and unrepentant Wolfman who pursued her to her very doorstep—has asked to see her. From his cell on death row, he demands an audience with the legendary Dr. Scarpetta. Deputy Chief Virginia West likes and respects her boss, Hammer, but with an increasing number of visiting businessmen being murdered in her city by a maniac with a penchant for painting his victims bright orange, she finds it hard to accept Hammer's edict that a rookie reporter should ride on patrol with her to better relations with their citizens.

Post-Mortem (Postmortem): Patricia Daniels Cornwell Post-Mortem (Postmortem): Patricia Daniels Cornwell

While the involvement of a Chief Medical Examiner in a crime investigation is slightly stretched, it is not totally out of bounds. The author focuses on real world dialogue rather than witty, smart-alec remarks, and this adds an earthy, graphic depth to the story. Lori Anne Petersen, a surgeon that wanted to specialize in plastic surgery; she worked at VMC (Virginian Medical Center). She attended Brown College and then Harvard Medical School. Her family lives in Philadelphia. In the early books Benton is described as the unit chief of the FBI profilers with a master's degree in psychology, working out of Quantico. In Point of Origin he has supposedly retired from the FBI and is working as a private consultant, though in The Scarpetta Factor it is implied that he was still under the FBI's control and was forced into the witness program, then into a retirement that he still resents. In Book of the Dead and the books following his return, he is a forensic psychologist on staff at McLean in Massachusetts, then also at Bellevue in NYC, while still consulting for the FBI.The book felt long. It was extremely detailed when it came to describe the technology used. I skimmed over most of those parts because the technology was extremely dated and it was hard to follow what she was saying. Also it described red-tape procedures in her lab that just put me to sleep. Cornwell, Patricia (1990). Postmortem (1sted.). Charles Scribner's Sons. p.73. ISBN 978-0-7434-7715-4.

Postmortem - PDF Free Download - EPDF.PUB Postmortem - PDF Free Download - EPDF.PUB

The victim’s name, he went on to explain, was Lori Petersen, a white female, thirty years old. Her husband had found her body about half an hour earlier.

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Secondly, it is just like a time warp. Computers are using diskettes, there is a VCR (google it kids), DNA testing is still in its primary stages, and police procedures that are long gone. I went the length of the hallway and stopped outside the master bedroom. I felt myself go hollow inside. Ordinarily, the medical examiner on call is summoned to a death scene. But this wasn’t ordinary. I had made it clear after the second case that no matter the hour, if there was another murder, I was to be called. Marino wasn’t keen on the idea. Ever since I was appointed chief medical examiner for the Commonwealth of Virginia less than two years ago he’d been difficult. I wasn’t sure if he didn’t like women, or if he just didn’t like me. Group Dynamics: Principal Investigator was expertly characterized. Supporting characters, less so. Child character annoying; cop character confusingly developed. Villainous functionaries not provided with appropriate villainous attributes other than serving as assessors of PI's activities. The novel opens as Dr. Kay Scarpetta, Chief Medical Examiner for the Commonwealth of Virginia, receives an early-morning call from Sergeant Pete Marino, a homicide detective at the Richmond Police Department with whom Scarpetta has a tense working relationship. She meets him at the scene of a woman's gruesome strangling, the latest in a string of unsolved murders in Richmond.