Dr. Kay Scarpetta, now freelancing with the National Forensic Academy in Florida, takes charge of a case that stretches from steamy Florida to snowbound Boston; one that at first appears as unnerving as any she has ever faced. The teasing psychological clues lead Scarpetta and her team -- Pete Marino, Benton Wesley, and Lucy Farinelli -- to suspect that they are hunting someone with a cunning and malevolent mind whose secrets have kept them in the...

As a medical examiner, Samantha Owen's job is to make a certain sense of death with crisp methodology. But the day the Tennessee floods took her husband and children, the light vanished from her life. She's pulled into a suffocating grief until she receives a peculiar call from Washington D.C. On the end of the line is an old boyfriend's mother, asking Sam to do a second autopsy on her son. Eddie Donovan is officially the victim of a vicious carjacking,...

"In the quiet of twilight, on an early autumn day, twenty-six-year-old Elisa Vandersteel is killed while riding her bicycle along the Charles River. It appears she was struck by lightning--except the weather is perfectly clear with not a cloud in sight. Dr. Kay Scarpetta, the Cambridge Forensic Center's director and chief, decides at the scene that this is no accidental Act of God. Her investigation becomes complicated when she begins receiving a...

"If you are reading this letter, I am dead and I would be most grateful if you could solve my murder..." When Owens receives a letter from a dead man imploring her to solve his murder, there's only one catch: Timothy Savage's death was so obviously the suicide of a demented individual that the case has been closed. A postmortem discovers clear signs that Savage was indeed murdered. And she finds DNA from a kidnapped child whose remains were recovered...

"Always apprehensive about working fire scenes, Tempe is called to Washington, DC, to analyze the victims of a deadly blaze and sees her misgivings justified. The devastated building is in Foggy Bottom, a neighborhood with a colorful past and present, and Tempe becomes suspicious about the property’s ownership when she delves into its history. The pieces start falling into place strangely and quickly, and, sensing a good story, Tempe teams with...

"Scarpetta is back! In this twenty-fifth in the electrifying, landmark #1 bestselling thriller series chief medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta hunts an ingenious killer who has mastered cutting-edge science for the most nefarious ends"--Provided by publisher

After working one of the worst mass killings in U.S. history, Scarpetta returns home to Cambridge, Massachusetts, when she receives an unsettling call. The body of a young woman has been discovered on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's rugby field and physical evidence links the case to a series of uniquely weird homicides in Washington, D.C., where Scarpetta's FBI husband has been deployed to help capture a serial killer dubbed the Capital...

Two mauled bodies in the woods. Top secret autopsies. The most chilling cases of Scarpetta's career. In this thrilling new installment of Patricia Cornwell's #1 bestselling Scarpetta series, chief medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta finds herself in a Northern Virginia wilderness examining the remains of two campers wanted by federal law enforcement. The victims have been savaged beyond recognition, and other evidence is terrifying and baffling, including...

"When a New York City construction crane mysteriously collapses, causing mass destruction and injury, Rhyme and Sachs are on the case. A political group claims responsibility for the sabotage and threatens another attack in twenty-four hours, unless its demands are met. The clock is ticking. Then a clue reveals to Rhyme that his nemesis, known as the Watchmaker, has come to town to fulfill his promise of murdering the criminalist. Now Rhyme and Sachs...

After two women are killed, medical examiner Maura Isles and homicide detective Jane Rizzoli uncover an ancient horror in a cloistered convent that leads them toward a dawning revelation about the killer's identity -- one that's too shattering to consider.