Archaeologist Kelly and FBI Agent Swanson Reprise their
Uneasy Partnership
The Scorpion’s Tail sees the
reluctant partnership of Nora Kelly, archaeologist, and Corrie Swanson, FBI Agent, reprised to solve a historical
mystery. I say reluctant as each of the women describe the other as a “pain in
the ass” and nothing in the initial setting for this novel changes that. Corrie
has been given what she sees as a make-work case—examining a fifty-year-old corpse
discovered on federal land—and only calls in Nora as a necessary unpleasantry
for recovering the remains. Nora, on the other hand, is competing for a
promotion at work with a newly hired, male senior curator. So, when Corrie comes
to ask the favor, Nora hopes that the agent isn’t “… going to throw her current dig into the extended chaos
she had with the previous one.”
The book is classified as a “historical
mystery” on Amazon, although the whodunit element seems to fade about halfway
through as the villain begins to tip his hand. Why this foe would be committing
all the crimes that occur during the story, however, remains a mystery and the
authors work this question into what might be considered a twist. To me,
however, it felt more like a dividing of the storyline and by the end, Corrie
and Nora are leading almost independent investigations into the case. But
because one of these threads lacks suspense and the other feels out-of-the-blue,
the ending lacked impact. Two weak endings put together does not equal one
strong one.
Besides
the end, there were a couple of other aspects of the book that I found
disappointing. For one, attention is paid to the sexist environment in which Corrie
and Nora find themselves—the male-dominated world of the FBI in the former case
and competition for promotion in the latter. Unfortunately, Preston and Child’s
treatment of the issue is heavy-handed in places. But to make the matter worse,
Agent Pendergast makes an appearance at the end to solve the crime as if the
two women aren’t capable of doing it themselves. Second, Corrie takes every
opportunity to characterize this case as penance for her mistake on a previous
domestic disturbance incident to the point where it is affecting her job
performance. Even her boss says, “I’m going to give you an
assignment, and you might find it a difficult one. I can summarize it in two
words: don’t brood.” But what
makes her feelings even less understandable is the fact that she is doing
exactly what a forensic anthropologist is trained to do in
criminal cases—determine identity and cause of death from skeletal remains. How
did she specialize in this area during her FBI training and not realize that
many of the cases would be exactly like this?
But despite these
limitations, I greatly enjoyed the book; I like Preston and Child’s
storytelling style. However, in future novels, I hope Corrie will shed some of
her self-doubt and embrace her career path. Hopefully, Nora will recognize she
enjoys the riddles of crime almost as much as the mystery of archeology. And
hopefully, in future books, neither of them will need a man to solve the crime.
See on Amazon: https://amzn.to/37fBWpm
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