Kay ScarpettaBooks in Order

Patricia Cornwell

A killer is stalking the streets of Richmond, Virginia. When the bodies begin to mount, Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta is pulled into a chilling investigation that blends high-stakes forensics with psychological warfare. Armed with cutting-edge science and unflinching resolve, Scarpetta must navigate hostile forces both inside and outside the investigation—because someone isn’t just trying to hide the truth. They’re trying to kill her.

Patricia Cornwell

Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta investigates the murder of Beryl Madison, an author, whose latest manuscript is now missing.

Patricia Cornwell

Pathologist Kay Scarpetta searches for the cause of death in the case of five young couples whose decomposed bodies are found without shoes and socks deep in the woods. Bones, fragments of clothing, and a jack of hearts are all that remain.

Patricia Cornwell

Little Emily Steiner is dead. She left a North Carolina church meeting late one October afternoon and strolled along a lakeside path toward her house two miles away. Who met her on the path? Who followed her home, kidnapped her from her bedroom, and left her body by the lake days later? It's a puzzling and terrifying crime, reminiscent of the work of serial killer Temple Gault, who has long eluded Dr. Kay Scarpetta and the FBI's Investigative Support Unit in Quantico, Virginia, where Scarpetta consults as a forensic pathologist. At the request of the North Carolina authorities, Scarpetta and her colleagues, Benton Wesley and Pete Marino, fly to the mountains near Asheville to assist. They find a mother in mourning and an investigation in disarray. It's particularly frustrating to work a homicide after the fact. An inexperienced pathologist missed or misinterpreted some of the evidence, leaving Scarpetta with inconclusive medical and laboratory reports, and photographs that only raise questions. What, for instance, is the strange mark on the child's body that causes Scarpetta to plead with a reluctant judge for an exhumation? What is the meaning of trace evidence from a plant not indigenous to the Carolinas? And where did the killer obtain the unique blaze-orange duct tape, with which he bound Emily and her mother? Most puzzling of all is the question of when Emily died. She disappeared the night of October 1. Her nude body was found a week later. Scarpetta's obsession with time leads her to The Body Farm, a little-known research facility in Tennessee where, with the help of some grisly experiments, she might discover the answer. It is Scarpetta alone who can interpret the forensic hieroglyphics that eventually reveal a solution to the case as staggering as it is horrifying. Scarpetta not only must search for a killer, she must endeavor to help her niece Lucy, who is accused of espionage while interning at the FBI's highly classified Engineering and Research Facility in Quantico. And she must reach out to Marino, who retreats deeply into a strange relationship that may wreck his career and ruin his life. Scarpetta, too, is vulnerable, as she opens herself to the first physical and emotional bond she has felt in far too long a time. This is Scarpetta even more realized and poignant than we've seen her before, tenacious and brilliant, tender and gentle. The Body Farm is a stunning achievement from a bestselling author at the peak of her powers.

Patricia Cornwell

In Richmond, Dr. Kay Scarpetta, chief medical examiner of Virginia and consultant for the FBI, is in the midst of a late-night autopsy at the morgue when the call comes: Gault, the sadistic psychopath who has eluded capture for years, has struck again. For Scarpetta, her worst nightmare returns. While Scarpetta sorts through strange forensic evidence, including an uncommon tread pattern and extremely rare gold dental restorations, Gault kills again. But the prey he ultimately seeks is Scarpetta, for it becomes increasingly apparent that he is as focused on her as she is on him.

Patricia Cornwell

El cadáver de Theodore Andrew Edding ha aparecido bajo el agua, tras una supuesta sesión de inmersión. La forense Kay Scarpetta se encarga del caso y empieza a recibir llamadas telefónicas con identidades falsas, al tiempo que se producen comportamientos sospechosos por parte de sus colegas, intrigantes visitas nocturnas y molestos sabotajes. Ante esta situación, a Scarpetta no le queda más remedio que encerrarse en su laboratorio y no dejar ningún indicio por investigar. In Norfolk, Virginia, a reporter is killed while scuba diving in the naval yard. As she investigates, chief medical examiner Kay Scarpetta uncovers a plot by a fascist militia to take over an atomic power plant.

Patricia Cornwell

Dr. Kay Scarpetta is newly returned from Dublin, where she was called in to examine the remains of a murder victim whose limbs and head were expertly severed - a signature of a cunning serial killer on the loose again after an eight-year sabbatical - when the same killer apparently strikes again, this time much closer to home. After Scarpetta investigates the murder scene, the killer boldly contacts her through the Internet, inviting her to download photos of the murder victim and signing off with a chilling screen name: deadoc. When Scarpetta determines that the victim was exposed to a rare smallpox-like virus before she died and, later, that she herself may have been infected, she realizes that she is up against a killer with access to an incredibly sophisticated arsenal of deadly force - a killer with a specific animus directed toward her.

Patricia Cornwell

From the author of Unnatural Exposure and Cause of Death comes a new Kay Scarpetta novel that pits Virginia's chief medical examiner against an audacious and wily killer who uses fire to mask his crimes. And when Scarpetta learns that her old nemesis, Carrie Grethen, is somehow involved, the investigation gets personal and tragedy strikes closer to home.

Patricia Cornwell

"The nightmare begins when a cargo ship arriving at Richmond's Deep Water Terminal from Belgium is discovered to be transporting a locked, sealed container holding the decomposed remains of a stowaway." "The autopsy performed by Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta initially reveals neither a cause of death nor an identification. But the victim's personal effects and an odd tattoo take Scarpetta on a hunt for information that leads to interpol's headquarters in Lyon, France, where she receives critical instructions: Go to the Paris morgue to receive forbidden, secret evidence and then return to Virginia to carry out a mission. It is a mission that could ruin her career."--BOOK JACKET

Patricia Cornwell

A case for Dr Kay Scarpetta and Detective Pete Marino to crack - and a threat to Scarpetta which could change the course of her career.

Patricia Cornwell

Dr. Scarpetta is no longer Virginia's Chief Medical Examiner so she packs up and heads for Florida. She must unravel a twisted conspiracy with an international reach that will force her to question the loyalty and trust of all she holds dear.

Patricia Cornwell

Dr. Kay Scarpetta, now freelancing from south Florida, returns to the city that turned its back on her five years ago.In Trace, Scarpetta travels to Richmond, Virginia, at the odd behest of the recently appointed Chief Medical Examiner, who claims that he needs her help to solve a perplexing crime. When she arrives, however, Scarpetta finds that nothing is as she expected: her former lab is in the final stages of demolition; the inept chief isn't the one who requested her after all; her old assistant chief has developed personal problems that he won't reveal; and a glamorous FBI agent, whom Marino dislikes instantly, meddles with the case.Deprived of assistance from colleagues Benton and Lucy, who are embroiled in what first appears to be an unrelated attempted rape by a stalker, Scarpetta is faced with investigating the death of a fourteen-year-old girl, working with the smallest pieces of evidence-traces that only the most thorough hunters can identify. She must follow the twisting leads and track the strange details in order to make the dead speak-and to reveal the sad truth that may be more than even she can bear.

Patricia Cornwell

From America's #1 bestselling crime writer comes the extraordinary new Dr. Kay Scarpetta novel.The "Book of the Dead" is the morgue log, the ledger in which all cases are entered by hand. For Kay Scarpetta, however, it is about to have a new meaning. Fresh from her bruising battle with a psychopath in Florida, Scarpetta decides it's time for a change of pace-not only personally and professionally, but also geographically. Moving to the historic city of Charleston, South Carolina, she opens a unique private forensic pathology practice, one in which she and her colleagues-including Pete Marino and her niece, Lucy-offer expert crime-scene investigation and autopsies to communities that lack local access to competent death investigation and modern technology. It seems like an ideal situation, until the new battles start-with local politicians, with entrenched interests, with someone whose covert attempts at sabotage are clearly meant to run her out of town. And that's even before the murders and other violent deaths begin. A young man from a well-known family jumps off a water tower. A woman is found ritualistically murdered in her multi-million-dollar beach home. The body of an abused young boy is discovered dumped in a desolate marsh. Meanwhile, in distant New England, problems with a prominent patient at a Harvard-affiliated psychiatric hospital begin to hint at interconnections that are as hard to imagine as they are horrible. Scarpetta has dealt with many brutal and unusual crimes before, but never a string of them as baffling, or as terrifying, as the ones that face her now. Before she is through, that Book of the Dead will contain many names-and the pen may be poised to write her own.The first name in forensics. The last name in suspense. Once again, Patricia Cornwell proves her exceptional ability to entertain and enthrall.

Patricia Cornwell

Leaving behind her Charleston forensic pathology practice to accept an assignment in New York City, Kay Scarpetta learns the story of an injured psychiatric patient who claims he was attacked by a stalker who was killing someone else at the time.

Patricia Cornwell

It is the week before Christmas. A tanking economy has prompted Dr. Kay Scarpetta – despite her busy schedule and her continuing work as the senior forensic analyst for CNN – to offer her services pro bono to New York City's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. In no time at all, her increased visibility seems to precipitate a string of unexpected and unsettling events. She is asked live on the air about the sensational case of Hannah Starr, who has vanished and is presumed dead. Moments later during the same telecast she receives a startling call-in from a former psychiatrist patient of Benton Wesley's. When she returns after the show to the apartment where she and Benton live, she finds an ominous package – possibly a bomb – waiting for her at the front desk. Soon the apparent threat on Scarpetta's life finds her embroiled in a surreal plot that includes a famous actor accused of an unthinkable sex crime and the disappearance of a beautiful millionaires with whom Lucy seems to have shared a secret past.Scarpetta's CNN producer wants her to launch a TV show called The Scarpetta Factor. Given the bizarre events already in play, she fears that her growing fame will generate the illusion that she has a "special factor," a mythical ability to solve all her cases. She wonders if she will end up like other TV personalities: her own stereotype.The Scarpetta Factor, the seventeenth in the series, finds the familiar cast of characters together again in New York. Marino is working for the NYPD; Benton Wesley uses his forensic psychological expertise at Kirby and Bellevue; and Lucy continues to dazzle with her expertise in forensic computer investigations as she works yet another case with NY prosecutor Jaime Berger.

Patricia Cornwell

Kay Scarpetta has been training at the Dover Port Mortuary, mastering the art of 'virtual autopsy' - a groundbreaking procedure that could soon revolutionise forensic science. And it is not too long before these new skills urgently need to be put into practice. A young man drops dead, apparently from a heart condition, eerily close to Scarpetta's home. But when his body is examined the next morning, there are stunning indications that he may have been alive when he was zipped inside a pouch and locked inside the cooler. When the revolutionary 3D radiology scans reveal more shocking details about internal injuries unlike any Scarpetta has ever seen, Scarpetta realizes that this is a case of murder - and that she is fighting a cunning and uniquely cruel enemy. Now it is a race against time to discover who and why before more people die. But that time is running out ...

Patricia Cornwell

Determined to find out what happened to her former deputy chief, Jack Fielding, murdered six months earlier, Kay Scarpetta travels to the Georgia Prison for Women, where an inmate has information not only on Fielding, but also on a string of grisly killings.

Patricia Cornwell

An eminent paleontologist disappears from a dinosaur dig site, and Kay Scarpetta receives a grisly communication that gives her a dreadful reason to suspect this may become her next case. She just may be on her own this time--against an enormously powerful and cunning enemy who seems impossible to defeat.

Patricia Cornwell

"Ten years ago when Malik Copeland was a hopeless addict, he signed away the parental rights to his son, Phoenix. It cut him to the core when his ex-wife allowed her new husband to adopt Phoenix and give him his last name. After getting clean and sober and moving across the country, Malik meets Sasha, a professional and business owner who is the single parent of a young child, Zoe. Together, they build a life together and Malik adopts Zoe. He is a caring stepfather and doting husband, and life couldn't be better. Out of the blue, Malik receives a call from the mother of his now thirteen-year-old son, telling him that the boy wants to get to know him. Malik and Phoenix establish a long-distance relationship, and after a visit during spring break, Phoenix decides that he wants to stay with his father--permanently. Phoenix moves in and the Copelands are one big happy family. Malik's life feels complete as he and his son continue to bond. Handsome, intelligent, and well-mannered, Phoenix is a joy to be around, and Sasha and Zoe adore him. Over time, however, Phoenix begins to exhibit antisocial behavior, and Malik fears that his son's congenial persona is merely a façade. And when a young child goes missing, evidence points to Phoenix and Malik has to ask himself how far he'll go to protect his own flesh and blood"--Amazon.com.

Patricia Cornwell

Dr. Kay Scarpetta is working a suspicious death scene in Cambridge, Massachusetts when an emergency alert sounds on her phone. A video link lands in her text messages and seems to be from her computer genius niece Lucy. But how can it be? It's clearly a surveillance film of Lucy taken almost twenty years ago. As Scarpetta watches, she begins to learn frightening secrets about her niece, whom she has loved and raised like a daughter. That film clip and then others sent soon after raise dangerous legal implications that increasingly isolate Scarpetta and leave her confused, worried, and not knowing where to turn. She doesn't know whom she can tell -- not her FBI husband Benton Wesley or her investigative partner Pete Marino. Not even Lucy. The clips launch these characters on an intensely psychological odyssey that includes the mysterious death of a Hollywood mogul's daughter, aircraft wreckage on the bottom of the sea in the Bermuda Triangle, a grisly gift left in the back of a crime scene truck, and videos from the past that threaten to destroy Scarpetta's entire world and everyone she loves. The diabolical presence behind what unfolds seems obvious -- but strangely, not to the FBI. Certainly that's the message they send when they raid Lucy's estate and begin building a case that could send her to prison for the rest of her life.

Patricia Cornwell

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 flurry of bizarre poems from an anonymous cyberbully who calls himself Tailend Charlie. Though subsequent lab results support Scarpetta's conclusions, the threatening messages don't stop. When the tenth poem arrives exactly twenty-four hours after Elisa's death, Scarpetta begins to suspect the harasser is involved, and sounds the alarm to her investigative partner, Pete Marino, and her husband, FBI analyst Benton Wesley. She also enlists the help of her niece, Lucy. But to Scarpetta's surprise, tracking the slippery Tailend Charlie is nearly impossible, even for someone as brilliant as her niece. Also, Lucy can't explain how this anonymous nemesis could have access to private information. To make matters worse, a venomous media is whipping the public into a frenzy, questioning the seasoned forensics chief's judgment and "a quack cause of death on a par with spontaneous combustion."

Patricia Cornwell

Patricia Cornwell

Patricia Cornwell

The creator of Kay Scarpetta, the most fascinating character in contemporary crime fiction, now cunningly reveals the heart and soul of a metropolitan police department. With Charlotte as her simmering background, she propels us into the core of the force through the lives of a dynamic trio of heroes: Andy Brazil, an ambitious younger reporter for The Charlotte Observer and an eager - sometimes too eager-volunteer cop; Police Chief Judy Hammer, the professionally strong yet personally troubled guardian of Charlotte's law and order; and her deputy chief, Virginia West, a genuine head-turner who is married to her job. To walk the beat with Hammer, West, and Brazil is to learn the inner secrets of police work - the tension and the tedium, the hilarity and the heartbreak, the unexpected pump of adrenaline and the rush of courage that can lead to heroics ... or death.