From Potter's Field (novel)
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| From Potter's Field | |
| Author | Patricia Cornwell |
|---|---|
| Country | United States of America |
| Language | English |
| Series | Kay Scarpetta |
| Genre(s) | Crime fiction |
| Publisher | Scribner |
| Publication date | 1995 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover, paperback) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-684-19598-4 |
| Preceded by | The Body Farm |
| Followed by | Cause of Death |
From Potter's Field is a crime fiction novel by Patricia Cornwell.
Contents |
[edit] Plot introduction
From Potter's Field is the sixth book of the Dr. Kay Scarpetta series by author Patricia Cornwell.
[edit] Explanation of the novel's title
A potter's field is a place for the burial of unknown or indigent people. The term comes from Matthew 27:7 in the New Testament of the Bible, in which Hebrew priests take 30 pieces of silver returned by a repentant Judas and "used the money to buy the potter's field as a burial place for foreigners." It was not called "the potter's field" because a maker of pottery owned it, but rather because the land was unfit to grow crops, and therefore only used by potters to dig clay.
[edit] Plot summary
The story begins as a rotten Christmas for Scarpetta: Temple Gault has struck again, leaving a naked, apparently homeless girl shot in Central Park on Christmas Eve; Scarpetta, as the FBI's consulting pathologist, is called in. Later, a transit cop is found shot in a subway tunnel, and, back home in Richmond, Virginia, the body of a crooked local sheriff is delivered to Scarpetta's own morgue by the elusive, brilliant Gault. The normally unflappable Scarpetta finds herself hyperventilating and nearly shooting her own niece. In the end, some ingenious forensic detective work and a visit to the killer's agonized family set up a high-tech climax back in the New York subway, which Gault treats as the Phantom of the Opera did the sewers of Paris.
[edit] Characters in From Potter's Field
- Kay Scarpetta - Chief Medical Examiner.
- Benton Wesley - FBI Profiler.
- Lucy Farinelli- Kay's niece.
- Pete Marino - Detective Sergeant in the Richmond Police Department.
- Temple Gault - Serial Killer.
- Carrie Grethen - Accomplice to Gault.
[edit] Major themes
- The hunt for the serial-killer Temple Gault.
[edit] Allusions/references to actual history, geography and current science
- The story is set in Richmond, Virginia and New York.
