Red Mist (Chapters 1-10)

In general, I like books that are part of a series, whether the premise is continued from one book to another (Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse series) or the newest book merely uses the same characters with new premises (Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone alphabet novels).  A different series by Harris features Lily Bard, and the Library Journal blurb on the cover of the paperback says that Lily Bard “[is] the equal of Kay Scarpetta , Kinsey Millhone and V.I. Warshawski.”  This peaked my interest regarding these characters, and when a friend of mine recommended a Kay Scarpetta book, Red Mist, I thought we’d give it a try here. 

One of the difficult tasks for the writer of a series like this is to give enough background to bring a new reader up to speed on important series details without wasting too much ink (and the reader’s time and patience) on it.  Some authors handle this task extremely well.  Others… not so much.  This is the first time I have ever read a Patricia Cornwell novel, so I don’t really have enough evidence to judge either way.  And it’s hard to separate the “series background” from the “current premise background.”  In the first 10 chapters of this book, we have seen, 1. Kay driving to prison, 2. Kay speaking to prison director, 3. Kay speaking to prison director some more, 4. Kay speaking with inmate, 5. Kay speaking with inmate some more, 6. Kay finding a phone and calling Jaime, 7. Kay calling Leonard, 8. Kay speaking with Pete, 9. Kay speaking with Pete some more, and 10. Kay speaking with Pete and Jaime.  Not a lot of action here. 

Most of the dialog is heavy on character development and “series background”; not uninteresting, but not fascinating either.  Between conversations, there is a lot of “current premise background,” briefly describing earlier events that are important to the story, but apparently not important enough to include in the actual plot line.  To be fair, a lot of really good books begin this way, with a few chapters devoted to character development and background.  But here we find ourselves one quarter of the way through the book, and the “action” has consisted almost entirely of conversation, much of it phrased in an almost chit-chat prime time TV fashion.  If this sounds harsh, I hasten to add that the prose is mostly good – decidedly better than that of James Patterson or Danielle Steel.  (Why are so many extremely popular writers second-rate wordsmiths?)  But the occasional awkward syntax, questionable word choice and sophomoric phrasing does mar the flow somewhat, though I would happily read another of Cornwell’s books if someone were to steer me toward one with a more active plot. 

So far in this book, the Mystery is not so much about solving a crime as it is about the question, “Why are Kay’s colleagues acting so strangely?”  This is fine as far as it goes, but it seems to be milked for much more than it’s worth.  Finally, at the end of chapter 10, we get a hint of what the secrecy is all about:  “’Regardless of one’s beliefs [regarding capital punishment] or moral convictions, Lola didn’t kill the Jordans.  She didn’t kill Clarence, Gloria, Josh, and Brenda.  In fact, she never met them.  She was never inside their house … Lola’s innocent of the crimes she was tried for and convicted of,’ Jaime says.”  It’s not enough to say that Lola didn’t kill the Jordans.  It must be emphasized that the Jordans were real people with first names.  It’s also not enough to say she was innocent of the crime.  We have to underscore that she was innocent of the crime she was “tried for and convicted of.”  Also, this pervasive use of “So-and-so says” instead of “So-and-so said” is something that your 9^th grade English teacher would have red-penciled.  But - believe it or not - I still have high hopes for the remainder of the book!