The Body Farm by Patricia Cornwell (1994). I read this book almost entirely on the bus, during my weekly commute. I think this is the third book I read from P. Cornwell and it will probably be the last one. It is not that her books are bad, but I realized she uses the same formula in her books and after a while it gets kinda tiresome. Well, to be honest this book is not that bad. It is really entertaining to witness how Key and Marino interact throughout the book. They are a strange mixture between friends, colleagues, and even at times I can sense some subtle hint of sexual tension between them.
Now, about the story in one simple sentence: A teenager is murdered by her mother. Near the end of the book Key rescues Marino from the crazy mother and now I can see that Marino is not really that big. A parallel story deals with Lucy (Key’s niece). Lucy now has grown up now and is in college. She is doing an internship with the FBI where her aunt knows the right people, but Lucy’s stubbornness and lesbianism drove her into quite a lot of troubles from which her aunt has to save her again and again. To cope with her depression, Lucy has become an alcoholic and ends up in an institution, but she flees and Key spends the rest of the book looking for her.