Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Cornwell, Patricia - Paul Skenazy (review date 20 July 1997)

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Paul Skenazy (review date 20 July 1997)

SOURCE: Skenazy, Paul. “Mysteries.” Washington Post Book World 27, no. 29 (20 July 1997): 10.

[In the following excerpt, Skenazy offers a negative assessment of Unnatural Exposure, faulting Cornwell for neglecting the scientific details that made her previous books so engaging.]

After a detour earlier in the year in Hornet's Nest, Patricia Cornwell returns to Dr. Kay Scarpetta, Virginia's Medical Examiner, who provides more lurid details about corpses and their meaning than most of us imagined we'd ever care to know. Unnatural Exposure begins with an unsolved case of mutilated bodies, some in Ireland and some in Virginia, that seem the work of the same killer. A similar corpse found at a Virginia dump site, however, proves to be done by a different set of hands. Convinced of that, Scarpetta tries to develop a sense of this new killer, while one detective leaks information...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Charles Champlin (review date 11 February 1990)
   2. Joan Hamerman Robbins (review date 7 July 1991)
   3. Charles Champlin (review date 20 September 1992)
   4. Eva Schegulla (review date summer 1993)
   5. Bettina Berch (review date fall 1993)
   6. Charles Champlin (review date 4 September 1994)
   7. Dinitia Smith (review date 11 September 1994)
   8. Maureen Corrigan (review date 20 August 1995)
   9. Jonathan Coe (review date 1 October 1995)
   10. Mary Scott (review date 13 October 1995)
   11. Mary Cantwell (essay date 14 July 1996)
   12. David Sexton (review date 1 March 1997)
   13. Kirkus Reviews (review date 1 July 1997)
   14. Paul Skenazy (review date 20 July 1997)
   15. Peter Messent (essay date fall–winter 2000)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright