As the opening section for this article indicates, this novel can serve as a means to define Cornwell's place in the mystery genre as she uses the accouterments of a classical murder in a hardboiled way. Fans of detective stories can differentiate (and debate) the pleasures of reading both styles of mystery and can explain if readers often enjoy one or the other or both. Carolyn G. Hart sets her classical detective tale Death on Demand (1987) in a mystery bookshop and comments on the crossing on styles in describing the shelving of books: "Cozy readers would never dream of picking up a horror story.

Hard-boiled enthusiasts would prefer the Yellow Pages to romantic suspense." Do such boundaries of taste apply for the Scarpetta series?

Yet generic questions alone do not give Cornwell justice, as the chief reward of reading her is to see what she does...