Kay Scarpetta, No. 15
The "book of the dead" is the morgue log, a ledger in which all cases are entered by hand. For Kay Scarpetta, however, it is about to take on 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 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 autopsy services to communities lacking local access to modern, competent death investigation t
And that's before the murders and other violent deaths even begin: A young man from a well-known family jumps off a water tower. A woman is found ritualistically murdered in her multimillion-dollar beach home. The body of an abused young boy is discovered dumped in a desolate marsh. Kay Scarpetta has dealt with many brutal and unusual crimes before, but never a string of them as baffling, or as terrifying, as the ones confronting her now.
"[T]he abrupt shifts in point of view slow the momentum, and the reader flounders in excessive forensic minutiae. " - Publishers Weekly.
"What's most distinctive about this venerable franchise is the kitchen-sink plotting; the soap-opera melodrama that prevents any given volume from coming to a satisfying end; and the emphasis on titanic battles between Scarpetta and a series of Antichrists. Proceed at your own risk. " - Kirkus Reviews.
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New York Times bestselling novelist Patricia Daniels Cornwell is the
only woman in the United States to receive England's coveted Gold Dagger,
widely considered to be the most prestigious crime-writing award in the world.
A former award-winning police reporter for the Charlotte Observer,
Cornwell worked for more than six years as a computer analyst in the chief
medical examiner's office in Virginia, where she witnessed hundreds of
autopsies and even assisted as a "scribe," recording the measurements of the
wounds of murder victims. During that time, she also was a volunteer with the
Richmond Police Department, and has spent time with law enforcement around the
world.
Those experiences inspired her to create Dr. Kay Scarpetta, a tenacious chief
medical examiner who tracks ...
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