Kay Scarpetta mysteries

A serial killer is loose in Richmond, specializing in attractive young couples whose bodies are inevitably found in the woods months later-- minus their socks and shoes. After months of exposure to the elements, all that remains of this killer's victims has, in every case, left Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta unable even to determine an exact cause of death. Frustrated that her high-tech forensic skills have apparently proved useless, Kay...

Dr. Kay Scarpetta, FBI forensic pathologist, investigates the murder of a child, Emily Steiner. Emily was killed coming home from a North Carolina church meeting. It's a puzzling and terrifying crime, reminiscent of the work of serial killer Temple Gault, who has long eluded Dr. Scarpetta.

Medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta is anticipating a quiet New Year's Eve when she is called to investigate the death of a reporter found in the murky waters of a Navy shipyard. Her findings about the cause of death sets the FBI onto the story the dead man was following, leading Scarpetta and everyone involved into the hands of a cult fantastic.

Medical examiner Kay Scarpetta's investigation of a killer who uses fire to hide his crimes turns personal when she learns that her old nemesis, Carrie Grethen, is somehow involved.

All the familiar faces--friend and foe--are here: police captain Marino, Kay's niece Lucy, the so-called Werewolf murderer, and (in memoriam) Kay's lover Benton Wesley and his killer, Carrie Grethen. Kay, who nearly killed the Werewolf in self-defense as Black Notice came to a close, now finds herself the target of a corrupt police investigation that will dredge her darkest secrets from the deepest corners of her past.

Dr. Kay Scarpetta returns to Richmond, Virginia from freelancing in South Florida at the request of the recently appointed Chief Medical Examiner to solve the murder of a 14-year-old girl, but she finds that nothing is as she left it. Her former lab is being demolished; the chief isn't really the one who requested her; her former assistant chief has has personal problems that he refuses to reveal; and a glamorous FBI agent meddles with the case....

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 geographically. Moving to the historic city of Charleston, South Carolina, she opens a unique private forensic pathology practice, one in which...

Kay Scarpetta becomes embroiled in a surreal plot that includes a famous actor accused of an unthinkable sex crime and the disappearance of a beautiful millionairess with whom her niece Lucy seems to have shared a secret past. In the seventeenth installment of the Kay Scarpetta series, the police are stumped by a particularly baffling crime. After exhausting all leads, authorities implore the help of Scarpetta, now a CNN senior forensic analyst....

On her quest to find out exactly what happened to her former deputy chief, Jack Fielding, murdered six months before, Scarpetta drives to the Georgia Prison for Women to meet a convicted sex offender and the mother of a vicious and diabolically brilliant killer. Against the advice of her FBI criminal intelligence agent husband, Benton Wesley, Scarpetta is determined to hear this woman out. Scarpetta has both personal and professional reasons to learn...

Massachusetts Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta has just returned from working one of the worst mass murders in U.S. history when she’s awakened at an early hour by Detective Pete Marino. A body, oddly draped in an unusual cloth, has just been discovered inside the sheltered gates of MIT and it’s suspected the identity is that of missing computer engineer Gail Shipton, last seen the night before at a trendy Cambridge bar. It appears she’s...

Patricia Cornwell delivers the newest 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...

Forensic pathologist Kay Scarpetta has come almost full circle, returning to Virginia as the chief medical examiner, the state where she launched her storied career. Finding herself the new girl in town once again after being away for many years, she's inherited not only an overbearing secretary, but also a legacy of neglect and potential corruption. She and her husband Benton Wesley, now a forensic psychologist with the U.S. Secret Service, have...

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...