Black Notice
Putnam Audio, abridged, $24.95
Putnam Audio, unabridged, $39.95
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REVIEW BY CLAY STAFFORD
Black Notice begins when Kay Scarpetta receives a letter from her murdered lover on the one-year anniversary of his death. Scarpetta is almost immediately called to a crime scene where she finds a badly decomposed, two-weeks-at-sea dead body and the message "Bon voyage, le loup-garou." A translation won't be given here because it is part of the mystery, but suffice it to say that at the mention of a loup-garou Stephen King's interest would be piqued. This is not an easy mystery to solve, for Scarpetta or the reader. At first it may seem that there are a dozen different and unrelated things going on at the same time: a drug and firearms sting operation in Miami, a dead body in a ship's cargo hold in Richmond, a demoted detective, Interpol involvement on two continents, a dishonest assistant, a crooked Deputy Chief, a hunky ATF man, the gruesome murders of women in America and France. By the end of the story, it all makes sense, all loose ends are tied, and the reader realizes there wasn't a wasted paragraph anywhere. This story is probably Patricia Cornwell's most intricate weaving job ever. And while it is part of a serial with lawyer/doctor Kay Scarpetta, Cornwell quickly introduces the new reader to the existing relationships so that no one is lost. The critiques of Black Notice are minor at best, and generally applicable to the entire Scarpetta series. First, there's an inherent literary problem for the reader when writing a life-or-death thriller in first person. It kills suspense. If the narrator is telling the tale, then no matter how treacherous things get, the reader always knows the narrator will survive. Second, social concerns are best shown through action rather than via character dialogue -- i.e., the prejudices against same-sex relationships. Cornwell's best work glows when characters exemplify the pain, not when they talk about it. Third, a couple of rare moments in the middle slow the action as they bog down in forensic terms, or stretch believability when clues turn up too easily or confessions blurt too quickly. But once these pass the reader should again expect a sleepless night of reading. Black Notice makes it very difficult to turn out the lights. It is Patricia Cornwell at her best. Clay Stafford is a writer and filmmaker.
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