Trace, By Patricia Cornwell, is a Creepy Ride.
Eyes on Walls, Crematoriums and Old Vengence Make this a Quick Read
May 31, 2009
While the vast majority of Cornwell's Scarpetta series focus not just on the crime being investigated, but also on Scarpetta as a person, Trace spends a fair amount of time focusing on Marino, Benton and Lucy instead. The reader gets very little of Scarpetta's feelings and thinking this time around.
The Characters in Trace
Marino, however, is dissected and pulled apart. His feelings for Scarpetta are made clear, even if he chooses not to tell her about them. There is a moment of queasy humor when Scarpetta must take pictures of his genitals because he has been so badly bitten by a the woman he slept with--the mother of the murdered girl.
His insecurities are laid bare as he tries not to let Scarpetta see him as a loser, as someone who sleeps with crazy women. Or, as he thinks briefly, rapes them. It would have been nice to see more of Scarpetta's feelings about what Marion may or may not have done, but the reader mostly just gets that she is angry. Not at Marino, so much, as the sick woman who hurt him.
Benton, too, is opened up for inspection. He takes in a woman who has been attacked in Lucy's home in order to keep her safe and to try and wrestle from her repressed memory what actually took place during the attack.
His frustration, his fear of losing Scarpetta, and his desire to help Lucy all rise to the top, showing him to be just the man that Scarpetta loves, even if they are farther away from one another both physically and mentally than they have ever been before.
The most disturbing character, though, is Lucy.
Her relationships continually flounder, and in Trace, the reader sees Lucy finally losing control over her life. She makes a rash decision to hire an ex Hollywood actress to work for her secretive firm, and then ends up in a relationship with her.
The relationship is destructive, chaotic and twisted. Add to that Lucy's being a lesbian, and it makes for a very disturbing aspect. A reader can only hope that somehow Lucy finds love and can be happy, even if she is a lesbian.
The Story of Trace
This is not, perhaps, one of Cornwell's best plots. A girl is killed by someone who used to work for Scarpetta and who blames Lucy for his failing health. It really is never explained why he chose this girl, how he chose this girl, or what she might or might not have had to do with Lucy.
He also kills a tractor driver, and those reasons are never fully explained. The assumption is that the tractor driver was in the way of the killer as he tried to remove bone and ashes from the old building's basement as it was being torn down.
The end of the novel moves exasperatingly quickly, as things are left to the readers assumptions and imagination rather than drawn out and explained.
Lucy's relationship ends the only way it can, Marino evidentally goes on with life, and Scarpetta finally gets to see Benton in Aspen, but is unsure how she still feels about him.
It was a fairly unsatisfying end to a complex tale.
Trace by Patricia Cornwell. Sphere, 2004. ISBN 978-0-7515-3077-3
