Summoned to an unnerving, abandoned theme park to retrieve a body, Dr Kay Scarpetta is devastated to learn that the victim is a man she once loved. While teaching in Rome during the early days of her career, Scarpetta had a love affair with acclaimed astrophysicist Sal Giordano that led to a lifelong friendship.

The murder scene is bizarre, with a crop circle of petals around the body, and Giordano's skin is strangely red. Scarpetta's niece Lucy believes he was dropped from an unidentified flying craft. Scarpetta knows an autopsy can reveal the dead's secrets, but she is shocked to find her friend seems to have deliberately left her a clue.

As the investigators are torn between suspicions of otherworldly forces, and of Giordano himself, Scarpetta detects an explanation closer to home that, in her mind, is far more evil . . .

In this thrilling new instalment of the #1 bestselling 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 a larger-than-life footprint.

After the most frightening body retrievals of her career, Scarpetta must discover who would commit murders this savage, and why.

The twenty-first book in the Kay Scarpetta series, from No. 1 bestselling author Patricia Cornwell. 'America's most chilling writer of crime fiction' The Times 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. Praise for the groundbreaking series: 'One of the best crime writers writing today' Guardian 'Devilishly clever' Sunday Times 'The top gun in this field' Daily Telegraph 'Forget the pretenders. Cornwell reigns' Mirror 'The Agatha Christie of the DNA age' Express TRACE was a No.1 Sunday Times bestseller in paperback in April 2005

Autopsies can reveal the secrets of the dead. And this victim is sending Scarpetta a message...

Summoned to an abandoned theme park to retrieve a body, Dr. Kay Scarpetta is devastated to learn that the victim is a man she once had an intense love affair with.

The murder scene is bizarre, with a crop circle of petals around the body, and Giordano’s skin is strangely red. Scarpetta’s niece Lucy believes he was dropped from an unidentified flying craft. Scarpetta knows an autopsy can reveal the dead’s secrets, but she is shocked to find her friend seems to have deliberately left her a clue.

As the investigators are torn between suspicions of otherworldly forces, and of Giordano himself, Scarpetta detects an explanation closer to home that, in her mind, is far more evil...

Forensic pathologist Kay Scarpetta has returned to Virginia as the chief medical examiner. She and her husband Benton are headquartered five miles from the Pentagon, in a post-pandemic world that’s been torn apart by civil and political unrest.

Just weeks into the job, Scarpetta is called to investigate a woman’s body which has been shockingly displayed on railroad tracks. As Scarpetta follows the trail, it leads unnervingly close to her own neighbourhood…

At the same time, two scientists are found dead in a top-secret laboratory in outer space. Scarpetta is summoned to the White House Situation Room and tasked with finding out what happened. But even as she’s working the first crime scene in space from the ground, an apparent serial killer strikes again. And this time, Scarpetta could be in greater danger than ever before…

THE THRILLING NEW KAY SCARPETTA MYSTERY FROM THE #1 GLOBAL BESTSELLER '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 . . . SCARPETTA WILL RETURN IN UNNATURAL DEATH, COMING SOON '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

No. 1 bestselling author Patricia Cornwell delivers the twenty-fourth engrossing thriller in her high-stakes series starring medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta. Someone is following you... One summer evening in New England, two young girls stumble upon a body. Forensic pathologist Dr. Kay Scarpetta arrives at the scene to find a young woman has been attacked with almost superhuman force. Someone is taunting you... Meanwhile, people close to Scarpetta start receiving suspicious calls. Could they be linked to Scarpetta's anonymous cyber stalker, Tailend Charlie? Someone wants to destroy you... A second death shocks Scarpetta to her core. Because analysis of the body shows a material that doesn't exist on earth. And it's clear that someone, or something, is coming for her, and is hell-bent on creating chaos...

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. Moving to the historic city of Charleston, South Carolina, she opens a unique private forensic pathology practice, one in which she and her colleagues offer expert crime scene investigation and autopsies to communities lacking local access to competent death investigation and modern technology. It seems like an ideal situation, until the murders and other violent deaths begin. A woman is ritualistically murdered in her multi-million-dollar beach home. The body of an abused young boy is found dumped in a desolate marsh. A sixteen-year-old tennis star is found nude and mutilated near Piazza Navona in Rome. Scarpetta has dealt with many brutal and unusual crimes before, but never a string of them as baffling, or as terrifying, as the ones before 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.

An investigative reporter is found dead in Virginia's icy waters ...
New Year's Eve and the final murder scene of Virginia's bloodiest year takes Scarpetta thirty feet below the Elizabeth River's icy surface. A diver, Ted Eddings, is dead, an investigative reporter who was a favourite at the Medical Examiner's office. Was Eddings probing the frigid depths of the Inactive Shipyard for a story, or simply diving for sunken trinkets? And why did Scarpetta receive a phone call from someone reporting the death before the police were notified?
The case envelops Scarpetta, her niece Lucy, and police captain Pete Marino in a world where both cutting-edge technology and old-fashioned detective work are critical offensive weapons. Together they follow the trail of death to a well of violence as dark and forbidding as water that swirled over Ted Eddings.

For more about Patricia Cornwell and her books visit her website on
www.patricia-cornwell.com

The No. 1 bestselling series starring medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta. You are being watched The death of a Hollywood mogul's daughter has the police convinced it's an accident. But Dr. Kay Scarpetta knows better. It's almost as if someone is leaving evidence only she would spot. They are always three steps ahead Scarpetta is sidetracked when she receives a video clip revealing disturbing secrets about her niece, Lucy. But before she can react, the FBI raid Lucy's estate. Time is running out Scarpetta suspects one person is behind it all: the murder, the videos, the FBI. She needs to stop them before it's too late - and everyone she loves is destroyed.

The legendary Patricia Cornwell is back with her No.1 bestselling, groundbreaking series following Kay Scarpetta Kay Scarpetta is back, and this time she's right in the path of danger... World-renowned forensic pathologist Kay Scarpetta and her husband Benton, a psychologist with the US Secret Service, have returned to Virginia. They are headquartered five miles from the Pentagon in a post-pandemic world that's been torn by civil and political unrest. Just weeks into the job, Scarpetta is called to a railway track where a woman's body has been shockingly displayed, her throat cut down to the spine. But the trail of clues will lead Scarpetta back to her own neighbourhood. At the same time, a catastrophe occurs in a top-secret lab in outer space, endangering the scientists aboard. Scarpetta is summoned to the White House to find out what happened. As she starts the new investigation, an apparent serial killer strikes again, this time dangerously close to home. Praise for Patricia Cornwell 'A pioneer of the genre of forensic psychological thriller' BBC 'Devilishly clever' Sunday Times 'The top gun in this field' Daily Telegraph 'Cornwell's books run on a cocktail of adrenaline and fear' The Times 'One of the best crime writers writing today' Guardian

The fourth book in the Kay Scarpetta series, from No. 1 bestselling author Patricia Cornwell. 'America's most chilling writer of crime fiction' The Times The fingerprints say the murderer is the man who's just been executed . . . At 11.05 one December evening in Richmond, Virginia, convicted murderer Ronnie Joe Waddell is pronounced dead in the electric chair. At the morgue Dr Kay Scarpetta waits for Waddell's body. Preparing to perform a post-mortem before the subject is dead is a strange feeling, but Scarpetta has been here before. And Waddell's death is not the only newsworthy event on this freezing night: the grotesquely wounded body of a young boy is found propped against a rubbish skip. To Scarpetta the two cases seem unrelated, until she recalls that the body of Waddell's victim had been arranged in a strikingly similar position . . . Praise for the groundbreaking series: 'One of the best crime writers writing today' Guardian 'Devilishly clever' Sunday Times 'The top gun in this field' Daily Telegraph 'Forget the pretenders. Cornwell reigns' Mirror 'The Agatha Christie of the DNA age' Express

Settling into her new life as a private forensic consultant, Kay Scarpetta agrees to investigate a cold case in Louisiana--the baffling eight-year-old murder of a woman with a history of blackouts and violent outbursts. Then she receives news that chills her to the core: Jean-Baptiste Chandonne--the vicious and unrepentant Wolfman who pursued her to her very doorstep--has asked to see her. From his cell on death row, he demands an audience with the legendary Dr. Scarpetta. With her friends and family by her side, Scarpetta tries to guess what sort of endgame this madman has in mind--how, if at all, it's related to the Louisiana case--and then confronts the shock of her life: a blow that will force her to question the loyalty and trust of all she holds dear...

This classic Kay Scarpetta thriller is reissued with a new Introduction by the #1 "New York Times" bestselling author. In rural North Carolina, the brutal murder of an 11-year-old shatters a small town. Now, Kay must conduct a grisly investigation at a clandestine facility in Tennessee known as "The Body Farm."

With "All That Remains," #1 bestselling author Patricia Cornwell returns to the chilling world of gutsy medical examiner Kay Scarpetta for the third installment of the classic suspense fiction series that begins with "Postmortem."
#1 "New York Times" bestselling author Patricia Cornwell's heart-stopping thriller featuring gutsy medical examiner Kay Scarpetta
In Richmond, Virginia, young lovers are dying. So far, four couples in the area have disappeared, only to be found months later as mutilated corpses. When the daughter of the president's newest drug czar vanishes along with her boyfriend, Dr. Kay Scarpetta knows time is short. Following a macabre trail of evidence that ties the present homicides to a grisly crime in the past, Kay must draw upon her own personal resources to track down a murderer who is as skilled at eliminating clues as Kay is at finding them...

The third book in the Kay Scarpetta series, from No. 1 bestselling author Patricia Cornwell. 'America's most chilling writer of crime fiction' The Times A killer is stalking young lovers. Taking their lives . . . and leaving just one tantalising clue . . . When the bodies of young courting couples start turning up in remote woodlands areas, Dr Kay Scarpetta's task as Chief Medical Examiner is made more difficult by the effects of the elements. Eight times she must write that the cause of death is undetermined. But when the latest girl goes missing turns out to be the daughter of one of the most powerful women in America, Kay finds herself prey to political pressure and press harassment. As she starts to investigate, she finds that vital evidence is being withheld from her - or even faked. And all the time a cunning, sadistic killer is still at large . . . Praise for the groundbreaking series: 'One of the best crime writers writing today' Guardian 'Devilishly clever' Sunday Times 'The top gun in this field' Daily Telegraph 'Forget the pretenders. Cornwell reigns' Mirror 'The Agatha Christie of the DNA age' Express