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'Point Of Origin' by Patricia Cornwell

Obvious evidence links new thriller to Cornwell

Thursday, January 01, 1998

By Bob Hoover, Book Editor, Post-Gazette

	Point Of Origin By Patricia Cornwell Putnam $25.95

There’s so much to learn from one of Patricia Cornwell’s books, like how to scrape skin from bone:

“I preferred wooden tongue depressors versus plastic spatulas to scrape tissue from bone,” explains Kay Scarpetta, the coroner hero of Cornwell’s thrillers. “Metal instruments were out of the question because they would cause damage that might obviate our finding true marks of violence.”

Not only do we pick up valuable forensic information, but we’re treated to such lyrical language. The phrase “might obviate our finding true marks of violence” just sings, doesn’t it?

We’ve interrupted Kay, chief medical examiner of Virginia, while she is cooking human remains in a shiny new soup kettle in her spanking new morgue in Richmond. The simmering makes it easier to get the skin off. Maybe she’s added some carrots and onions to her stock pot.

Kay scrapes for two hours. “I missed lunch, and in fact, never thought of it.”

Well, with the aroma of bubbling human remains in the room, who can blame her?

There’s no end to these absurd and sometimes idiotic moments in a Cornwell best seller, which includes her latest, “Point of Origin.” Her books lack even the barest, excuse me, bones of conventional fiction writing, from her fat, clumsy prose to her indifferent pacing of the plot.

“Point of Origin” continues the Cornwell style, as she wobbles and lurches from one gratuitously gory scene to another, separated by Kay’s whining and her melodramatic attempts to prove she’s something more than a sloppily drawn character in a series of badly written books.

Finally, with two-thirds of the book eaten up with flaccid filler, Cornwell rushes the plot to a hurried conclusion, dashed off so carelessly that we never meet the pair of monster serial killers until they go wordlessly to their reward.

And what caused Cornwell’s latest psychopath to peel the faces off 27 people and store them in his freezer? He had acne as youngster, you see, making him “unable to enjoy the entitlement of youthfulness or being the object of love.” (Man, Patty, what you do to the English language!)

Although this horror had been going on for more than 20 years, this guy was never a suspect, even though, as Kay cleverly surmised, he brought his trophies home aboard commercial airliners packed in dry ice.

Hold down the sniggering, please.

It’s clear from sales figures that the Cornwell cadre of fans is large and loyal. I just hope none of them has acne.