Throughout the Scarpetta series, Cornwell addresses the problem of the glass ceiling: Scarpetta is an extremely qualified woman who breaks into the upper echelons of a bureaucracy and maintains her lofty position through great effort. This novel features a scene (in Chapter 13) which demonstrates where Scarpetta now stands in relation to the men in Virginia's hierarchy. Scarpetta convinces a local sheriff to cooperate in granting bail and releasing an incarcerated suspect just because of her assurance that the suspect is in fact innocent. Such a scene was unthinkable in the first novel, Postmortem, and probably throughout the first four books, because in those early books, Scarpetta held only a precarious status and felt the questioning (and often hostile) glares of Virginia's male power structure. Matters were so tense that some readers legitimately may have wondered.....
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