Preview of The Body Farm Summary:

As the earlier Body of Evidence (1991) presents a series of fractured relationships, The Body Farm presents a series of unrequited loves, continuing Cornwell's hesitant, suspicious portrayals of human interaction. Emily had a crush on a boy from her church, but he plays a cruel adolescent prank by getting her to go somewhere to meet him, then not showing up. Creed Lindsey, the janitor at her school, likewise has a crush on Emily despite their vastly different ages, and he becomes a suspect in her death as he is known to watch her.

Lucy, Scarpetta's niece, now 21 and an intern at the FBI Academy while she finishes her undergraduate work at the University of Virginia, enters a lesbian affair with Carrie Grethen, a co-worker. (Cornwell here continues her sensitive treatment of homosexuality begun in Body of Evidence.) But that relationship too is destined for trouble as Carrie uses Lucy...