As the discussion of religious themes suggests, The Body Farm deepens Scarpetta's complexity. Her defense mechanism is her self-control. This novel both shows that the cost of that control is kindness and civility and signals that the control is weakening. Typically cold with others, Scarpetta appears rude when she and a local doctor visit a judge to get an order to exhume Emily's body. Scarpetta begins to state her reasons without introducing herself, and the judge wants the introduction. She easily forgets humane graces.

After commencing to sleep with Wesley, she deals with her welter of emotions by being acerbic and unkind to him, scolding him for his manners in a restaurant. Part of her fear is that he does not really care for her, so she uses gruffness to protect herself from being hurt. And she strives to avoid admitting her emotions. Late in novel, in a...