Because I love forensic thrillers, I thought I'd give Cornwell another try. I gave up on her books a while back. This one was better than the last few I'd read, but there continues to be so much negative introspection on Kay Scarpetta's part. When she's working forensics to solve a crime, that's what we want to read about. But instead the narrative gets slowed down by Scarpetta's depressing thoughts, her endless relationship problems with the people in her life, and her lust over a colleague as a married woman. These all make for good subplots, but in their proper place and time. Not in the middle of her autopsy of a murder victim or while she's fishing a victim out of the water. As far as the forensics goes, interesting as always, but the motive for the crime itself felt ill-explained and the ending was blah.