When I read the preceding novel in the Scarpetta series, Autopsy (2021, USA; my review), I hadn’t realised that Cornwell had actually ended the series with book 24, Chaos (2016, USA; my review). It’s not a great leap to imagine the greenlight for a TV series persuaded her to take up the series again, leading to a further four novels – after the one which provides half of the story for the first season of the TV adaptation.

While Livid (2022, USA) does not follow on storywise from Autopsy, there are definite commonalities, outside of the characters and their lives, that is, specifically Scarpetta’s credibility and career being under attack, and the use of speculative technology as a murder weapon. (One other thing that’s also cropped up in the last three books: a situation where Scarpetta ruins her tights and has to remove them, described in detail.)

Livid opens with Scarpetta giving expert testimony in a murder trial which has split the community where it occurred. Two households, both alike in dignity, and all that. Very much star-crossed lovers – but the young woman fell off a boat, the coroner bungled the autopsy (for reasons related to the plot), and the boyfriend was subsequently charged with murder. Scarpetta demonstrates the woman drowned and the injuries to her body were caused by propellers (it was several days before her body was found).

Then the sister of the judge presiding at the trial is found murdered. She was staying at the family home, was in the middle of a divorce from her billionaire partner, and worked in PR for the CIA. Meanwhile, an attack on the president, who was visiting the area, has been narrowly averted. The two incidents are, of course, connected; as is the murder-robbery of a local eatery/shop.

These novels have always been good at the forensics, at the science of determining cause of death, and from that building up a theory of the crime. Unfortunately, in other areas, they’ve gone from bad to worse. The main cast are well-drawn, although Scarpetta’s niece, Lucy, has always been too over-powered to be true. The fetishisation of scientific equipment has turned into one for antique furniture – when Scarpetta finally returns home from the crime scene, the reader is subjected to a piece-by-piece description of the fine art and furniture she and her husband have used to furnish their home.

The writing is definitely much worse than it was before Cornwell took a break from the series – so much so, I thought Autopsy might have been written by a LLM. And the same weird turns of phrase and poorly-constructed sentences are here in Livid; although not, thankfully, the bizarre bowdlerisation. For example,

When possible, we hang out with Mollie, her last name Gunner. (p135)

“We’re not bothering with the garage,” Benton decides, and the former carriage house has wooden doors that have to be swung open manually. (p221)

As Benton and I climb out, Dorothy opens the front door, and she has a fondness for onesies. (p222)

As for the tech… While her current facilities are poorly-equipped – the lab was run down by the previous chief medical examiner, her enemy Elvin Reddy, who is now the health commissioner and her boss – in other areas, Cornwell moves from present-day to science fiction, mostly in relation to the tech used by governments agencies, FBA, CIA Secret Service, and so on. And the murderer. The plot of Autopsy revolved around a commercial space station which was 3D-printing human tissue. No such space station exists, of course. In Livid, the murder weapon is quickly identified as a microwave emitter (which effectively cooks the victim’s brain). Somewhat implausibly, it was designed and built by a group of redneck domestic terrorists, and used by a rogue psychopathic member.

I’ve no idea why Cornwell decided to end the series with book 24, Chaos. But judging by the two novels released since it that I’ve read, Autopsy and now Livid, it was the right decision. There are currently a further three books in the series: Unnatural Death (2023, USA), Identity Unknown (2024, USA) and Sharp Force (2025, USA). I suspect we’ve not seen the last of Scarpetta – although I don’t believe a second season of the TV adaptation has been greenlit yet – but the novels are long past the point of diminishing returns, and are now aggressively tarnishing the reputation of the earlier books in the series.