Re: RARA-AVIS: mars and venus in the bookstore

From: JIM DOHERTY ( jimdohertyjr@yahoo.com)
Date: 30 Apr 2002


Carrie,

Re your comment below:

> . . . in fact the whole "forensic" genre
> (Cornwell, Reichs, etc)
> is heavily female. I wouldn't call most of these
> books hard-boiled in the
> sense it's used on this list . . .

Actually, without wanting to start a heated debate over whether they're any good or not, Dr. Kay Scarpetta strikes me as both tough and colloquial. Whether or not the list generally accepts that definition, or agrees that Scarpetts fits it if they do accept the definition, is another question.

But you bring up a point I've wondered about. Why is it that every so many coroner/medical examiners in fiction are youngish, attractive females. To a far greater degree, I suspect, than is true in real life.

Off-hand, there's Scarpetta, there's the female FBI agent in X-FILES (who's also a forensic pathologist as well as a street agent; THERE's realism!), the title character in CROSSING JORDAN, the Baltimore coroner on HOMICIDE, the attractive red-head on LAW & ORDER, and the drop-dead gorgeous black woman on L&O - SPECIAL VICTIMS. Were Quincy and Daniel Coffee the last actual males to perform fictional autopsies?

JIM DOHERTY

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