The Bone Bed

Kay Scarpetta Mysteries, Book 20

By: Patricia Cornwell

Narrated by: Kate Reading

From one of the world’s number top selling crime writers comes the extraordinary twentieth Kay Scarpetta novel.

A woman has vanished while digging a dinosaur bone bed in the remote wilderness of Canada. Somehow, the only evidence has made its way to the inbox of Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta, over two thousand miles away in Boston. She has no idea why.

But as events unfold with alarming speed, Scarpetta begins to suspect that the paleontologist’s disappearance is connected to a series of crimes much closer to home: a gruesome murder, inexplicable tortures, and trace evidence from the last living creatures of the dinosaur age.

When she turns to those around her, Scarpetta finds that the danger and suspicion have penetrated even her closest circles. Her niece Lucy speaks in riddles. Her lead investigator, Pete Marino, and FBI forensic psychologist and husband, Benton Wesley, have secrets of their own. Feeling alone and betrayed, Scarpetta is tempted by someone from her past as she tracks a killer both cunning and cruel.

©2012 Cornwell Etertainment, Inc. (P)2012 Penguin Audio

Disappointing

Cornwell has been a consistent writer that definitely got distracted and it impacted the quality of this book.

Kay Scarpetta....excellent series

I have been a big fan of this series, I love the strong female lead and her sidekick and that her love life never seems to reach the level of completeness she desires.

Better than books 18 & 19

Storyline and reader much better in this book. Worth the listen, hopefully we have moved past jealousy, pettiness, and Moreano can exist without all the hate thrown his way, and we can just get back to great storytelling.

Almost gave up

The narrator is horrible! I almost gave up very early on but stuck with it.
I enjoyed the story overall but some of it seemed repetitive and I’d skip forward.
Next time I go to buy a Patricia Cornwell book I’ll listen to the sample first. If it’s the same narrator, I won’t get it.
I’ve read many of Cornwell’s books over the years but this is only the 2nd I’ve listened to.

A bit Convoluted

I was a huge Kay Scarpetta fan ~20 years ago. I got frustrated with the reoccurring villains and all the Lucy plotlines and stopped reading them. The summary of this one caught my eye, and I decided to give the series another try.
To my relief, this novel worked well as a stand-alone with only a few references to past books.
The story was very complex, with Kay and Pete investigating multiple murders with multiple suspects. Meanwhile there is a trial going on for a (potentially related) murder. I lost the thread a few times and had to go back.
Unlike some other reviewers, I appreciated the relationship drama with Kay and Benton. She has, in early books, seemed very aloof and hard to relate to. In this book, she has a slight flirtation with a younger, attractive co-worker which I think is normal for a middle-aged woman wanting validation that "she's still got it". She also has some jealously toward a co-worker of Benton's who clearly has a crush on him. It made them seem human and relatable to me, and also factored into the plot.
The narrator was great. She made Lucy sound a little weird (like the clenched jaw stereotype of Northeastern women) but I've always thought Lucy was a little weird anyway.
There was a reference to an event in an earlier book that got me interested in reading book 16, so I may go back and take up the series.

Great Job Ms. Cornwell!

I continue to find Dr. Kay Scarpetta novels to be interesting and well worth my time.

Why is it required?

Good but not better than others. Too much is required! Why do I buy it and still required to gove a review.

The gang is all here

Everyone has been involved ed, and Janet was reintroduced to us. Lucy is still youthful and fun but more severe and growing up. None of the characters feel forced to be involved, yet you can tell that they each have their own lives and work and sometimes feel annoyed listening to Dr. K. As always, it keeps me guessing and a bona ride nail-biter until the end. I continue to read the books in chronological order. I picked up where I stopped on book 8, and they’re only getting better.

Enough about the damn buttons!

Fifteen minutes of story about buttons. I couldn’t get past this it was enough to turn me off the series completely. This is so slow it’s like she’s run out of stories to tell and micro focuses on stupid things like damn buttons.

Kay and the turtle

It was a little slow. I kept having to go back and listen again. But the story did keep me to the end. :)