Kay Scarpetta
26 primary works • 31 total works
Book 21
After working on one of the worst mass killings in US history, Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta returns home to recover, but an unsettling call drives her straight back to work.
The body of a young woman has been discovered inside the sheltered gates of MIT, draped in an unusual cloth and posed in a way that is too deliberate to be the killer's first strike. A preliminary examination reveals that the body is covered in a fine dust that under ultra-violet light fluoresces blood-red, emerald-green and sapphire-blue, and physical evidence links this to another series of disturbing homicides in Washington, DC.
As she pieces together the fragments of evidence, Scarpetta discovers that the cases connect, yet also seem to conflict, drawing herself and her team deeper into the dark world of designer drugs, drone technology, organised crime, and shocking corruption at the highest level.
Dust is a thrilling, addictive novel featuring one of the most iconic, original and compelling characters in crime fiction today.
Book 22
Book 23
No. 1 New York Times bestselling author Patricia Cornwell delivers the twenty-third engrossing thriller in her high-stakes series starring medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta.
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.
In this new novel, Cornwell launches these unforgettable 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.
In the latest novel in her bestselling series featuring chief medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta, Cornwell will captivate readers with the shocking twists, high-wire tension, and cutting-edge forensic detail that she is famous for, proving yet again why she’s the world’s #1 bestselling crime writer.
Book 24
No. 1 New York Times bestselling author Patricia Cornwell delivers the twenty-fourth engrossing thriller in her high-stakes series starring medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta.
On a summer evening in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Dr. Kay Scarpetta and her investigative partner Pete Marino respond to a call about a dead cyclist. It appears that a young woman has been attacked with almost superhuman force.
Marino and Scarpetta’s FBI agent husband receive suspicious calls, allegedly from Interpol. But why would an elite international police agency be interested in the case? The calls are linked to anonymous cyberbully Tailend Charlie, who has been harassing Scarpetta for over a week. But even her tech-savvy niece Lucy can’t trace the person behind them.
A second death, hundreds of miles south, shocks Scarpetta to her core – suddenly she is confronting something far more dangerous than she could ever imagine. Because when the residue in the victim’s wound is analysed, the results show a material that doesn’t exist on earth…
Book 25
Book 26
THE THRILLING NEW KAY SCARPETTA MYSTERY FROM THE #1 GLOBAL BESTSELLER. SCARPETTA IS COMING TO THE SCREEN SOON, STARRING NICOLE KIDMAN AND JAMIE LEE CURTIS
'I'M STILL SEEING STARS . . . KAY SCARPETTA IS THE SAME GRUMPY, WONDERFUL, RIVETING PERSONALITY SHE'S ALWAYS BEEN AND SHE'S ONLY GETTING BETTER WITH TIME' JAMES PATTERSON
Murder and mayhem. Scarpetta is back, and she's racing against the clock . . .
Chief medical examiner Kay Scarpetta is the reluctant star witness in a sensational murder trial when she receives shocking news. The judge's sister has been found dead. At first glance, it appears to be a home invasion, but then why was nothing stolen, and why is the garden strewn with dead plants and insects?
Although there is no apparent cause of death, Scarpetta recognizes tell-tale signs of the unthinkable, and she knows the worst is yet to come. The forensic pathologist finds herself pitted against a powerful force that returns her to the past, and her time to catch the killer is running out . . .
'RIVETING' THE TIMES
'CORNWELL'S ON BLISTERING FORM AND THIS ABSORBING THRILLER WILL KEEP YOU HOOKED' SUN
'CORNWELL KNOWS HOW TO CRAFT A MEAN PAGE-TURNER AND LIVID IS NO EXCEPTION' TELEGRAPH
'ONE OF THE BEST CRIME WRITERS WRITING TODAY' GUARDIAN
'GRIPPING . . . SOUND THE KLAXON, DR KAY SCARPETTA IS BACK' HEAT
'SCARPETTA'S 26TH OUTING AND THE PLOTTING REMAINS EVERY BIT AS FRESH AS WHEN WE WERE INTRODUCED TO HER' BELFAST TELEGRAPH
'ASTONISHING . . . THIRTY YEARS ON, THERE'S STILL NO OTHER CRIME WRITER LIKE HER' SUNDAY TIMES
Books 1-2
Books 1, 3