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#2 in the Andy Brazil Series
In Southern Cross, Cornwell takes us even closer to the personal and professional lives of big-city police, in a story of corruption, scandal, and robberies that escalate to murder. This time, her setting is Richmond, Virginia, where Charlotte Police Chief Judy Hammer has been brought by an NIJ grant to clean up the police force. Reeling from the recent death of her husband, and resented by the police force, city manager, and mayor of Richmond, Hammer is joined by her deputy chief Virginia West and rookie Andy Brazil on the most difficult assignment of her career. In the face of overwhelming public scrutiny, the trio must bring truth, order, and sanity to a city in trouble.
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#9 in the Kay Scarpetta Series
The devastating fire tore through the horse farm, destroying everything it touched. Picking through the wreckage, Dr. Kay Scarpetta uncovers human remains—the work of an audacious and wily killer who uses fire to mask his brutal murders. And when Scarpetta learns that her old nemesis, Carrie Grethen, has escaped from a hospital for the criminally insane and is somehow involved, the investigation becomes personal. Tragedy strikes close to home. And Scarpetta must match Grethen's every move with one of her own to douse the inferno of evil that threatens everyone around her. . . .
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#8 in the Kay Scarpetta Series
Dr. Kay Scarpetta is newly retired 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 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 With the help of her niece, Lucy, an FBI computer expert, she takes an extraordinary virtual tour of the background of the emailed photos. 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 specific animus directed toward her.
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#1 in the Andy Brazil Series
Deputy Chief Virginia West likes and respects her boss, Hammer, but with an increasing number of visiting businessmen being murdered in her city by a maniac with a penchant for painting his victims bright orange, she finds it hard to accept Hammer's edict that a rookie reporter should ride on patrol with her to better relations with their citizens. Her worst fears are confirmed when the reporter, Brazil, presses the button to activate the boot-release rather than the siren on their first outing. He's not the only blight on her life right now: her cat's angsty, her hormones are misbehaving. her opposite member in the uniformed division is behaving like a jackass, the radio despatcher is determined to trip her up, the D.A. is in the middle of a hot battle with Hammer and the visiting judge's bladder problems are causing havoc with the trial schedule. And orange colored corpses keep turning up on her patch.
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#7 in the Kay Scarpetta Series
On New Year's Eve, the last day of Virginia's bloodiest year since the Civil War, Dr. Kay Scarpetta plunges into the murky depths of the Elizabeth River to recover the very human remains of Ted Eddings, an investigative reporter. Was Eddings probing 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? With the advent of a second murder—this one closer to home—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 the water that swirled over Ted Eddings.
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#6 in the Kay Scarpetta Series
An unidentified nude female sits propped against a fountain in Central Park. There are no signs of struggle. When Dr. Kay Scarpetta and her colleagues Benton Wesley and Pete Marino arrive on the scene, they instantly recognize the signature of serial killer Temple Brooks Gault. Scarpetta, on assignment with the FBI, visits the New York City morgue on Christmas morning, where she must use her forensic expertise to give a name to the nameless—a difficult task. But as she sorts through conflicting forensic clues, Gault claims his next victim. He has infiltrated the FBI's top secret artificial-intelligence system developed by Scarpetta's niece, and sends taunting messages as his butchery continues, moving terrifyingly closer to Scarpetta herself.
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#5 in the Kay Scarpetta Series
Little Emily Steiner left a church meeting late one afternoon and strolled toward home along a lakeside path; a week later, her nude body was discovered, bound in blaze-orange duct tape. Called by the North Carolina authorities, forensic pathologist Kay Scarpetta recognizes similarities to the gruesome work of a serial killer who has long eluded the FBI But as she tries to make sense of the evidence, she is left with questions that lead 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. But she must also endeavor to help her niece, Lucy, who is embroiled in controversy at Quantico. And Scarpetta, too, is vulnerable, as she opens herself to the first physical and emotional bond she has felt in far too long a time.
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#4 in the Kay Scarpetta Series
Dr. Kay Scarpetta isn't used to planning autopsies on men who are still alive, but that's exactly what she's tasked with when serial killer Ronnie Joe Waddell is set for execution. His last words? "Killing me won't kill the beast." Enigmatic as they are, they soon prove prophetic: days after his execution, another body is found—with Waddell's fingerprints at the crime scene. How did a dead man commit a murder? Did Scarpetta autopsy the wrong man? And why can't she shake the feeling that she might be next?
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#3 in the Kay Scarpetta Series
They say Virginia is for lovers... But in the last few months, four young couples in Richmond have mysteriously 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, medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta knows time is short. Following a macabre trail of forensic 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 she is at finding them.
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#2 in the Kay Scarpetta Series
A reclusive author, Beryl Madison finds no safe haven from months of menacing phone calls—or the tormented feeling that her every move is being watched. When the writer is found slain in her own home, Kay Scarpetta pieces together the intricate forensic evidence—while unwittingly edging closer to a killer waiting in the shadows.
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#1 in the Kay Scarpetta Series
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 forensic investigation that blends high-stakes forensics with nerve-shattering suspense. 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.
