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#14 in the Kay Scarpetta Series
Dr. Kay Scarpetta, now freelancing with the National Forensic Academy in Florida, and her team—Pete Marino, Benton Wesley, and her niece, Lucy—track the odd connections between several horrific crimes and the people who are the likely suspects. In Florida, Scarpetta is investigating the puzzling disappearance four people who have been abducted from their quiet home, leaving their car parked haphazardly in the driveway and a stove burner on low. Then Marino finds something in a nearby house that stops him cold: a woman who has complained of harassment from a citrus canker inspector has been viciously murdered in her bed. As one psychopath, safely behind bars and the subject of a classified scientific study at a Harvard-affiliated psychiatric hospital, teases Scarpetta with tips that could be fact—or fantasy—the number of killers on the loose seems to multiply. Are these events related or merely random? And what can the study of one man's brain tell them about the methods of a psychopath still lurking in the shadows?
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#4 in the Women's Murder Club Series
In a deadly late-night showdown, San Francisco police lieutenant Lindsay Boxer fires her weapon and sets off a dramatic chain of events that leaves a police force disgraced, a family destroyed, and Lindsay herself at the mercy of twelve jurors. During a break in the trial, she retreats to a picturesque town that is reeling from a string of grisly murders—crimes that bear a link to a haunting, unsolved case from her rookie years. Now, with her friends in the Women's Murder Club, Lindsay must battle for her life on two fronts: in a trial rushing to a climax, and against an unknown adversary willing to do anything to hide the truth about the homicides—including kill again?
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#1 in the Honeymoon Series
When FBI agent John O'Hara first sees Nora Sinclair, she seems perfect. She has the looks. The career. The clothes. The wit. The sophistication. The tantalizing sex appeal. The whole extraordinary package—and men fall in line to court her. She doesn't just attract men, she enthralls them. So why is the FBI so interested in Nora Sinclair? Mysterious things keep happening to people around her, especially the men. And there is something dangerous about Nora when Agent O'Hara looks closer—something that lures him at the same time that it fills him with fear. Is there something dark hidden among the unexplained gaps in her past? And as he spends more and more time getting to know her, is he pursuing justice? Or his own fatal obsession?
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#1 in the Dr. Anya Crichton Series
The only female freelancer in the male-dominated field, pathologist Dr. Anya Crichton will take any work she can find to pay child support and her mortgage, get her new business off the ground, and battle her ex-husband for custody of their three-year-old son. Things turn around rapidly, however, when her expert forensic evidence is instrumental in winning a high-profile case—and new work offers start pouring in. But Anya's investigation into the drug overdose of a young Lebanese girl is raising troubling questions. Startling coincidences between this sad and tragic death and a series of seemingly unrelated suicides that Anya is also examining at the urging of her friend and colleague, detective sergeant Kate Farrer, suggest that there's a monumental evil at work in the shadows. With each scalpel cut, Anya Crichton's forensic prowess and deductive brilliance are pulling her relentlessly toward a sinister plot and a devastating truth—and once she enters the lethal darkness, she may never again see the light of day.
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#3 in the Lydia Strong Series
Acclaimed artist Julian Ross has just been found standing over her husband's bloody corpse in their New York City apartment. Julian claims that she slept peacefully beside him while he was violently stabbed in their bed. But police are skeptical, especially since Julian's first husband was killed and mutilated in exactly the same way. Julian turns to the tough-as-nails crime writer Lydia Strong, who plunges into the case with her signature grit and the help of her partner, P.I. Jeffrey Mark. Meanwhile, Lydia learns that Jed McIntyre, the serial killer who murdered her mother, is on the loose in New York. McIntyre is out for Lydia's blood, and his presence forces her to confront the evils of her past while solving her toughest murder case
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Author Miles Van Meter is on a book tour to promote his sensational bestseller Sleeping Beauty, a true-crime account of a deeply personal subject: the attack by a serial killer that left his twin sister, Casey, in a coma. Tonight the audience waits to hear Miles discuss recent developments in his sister's case -- unaware that pieces of this complex puzzle of violence, unknown even to the author, are about to be revealed. Six years earlier, life was much simpler for everyone involved, especially seventeen-year-old Ashley Spencer, a popular high school soccer star. Then one night an intruder entered Ashley's home and murdered her father and her best friend. Traumatized and suffering from a crippling sense of survivor guilt, Ashley is ready to give up on both soccer and life until help comes from an unexpected source -- a scholarship to the Oregon Academy, an elite private school, is extended to her by school dean Casey Van Meter. The school quickly becomes a haven for both Ashley and her mother, Terri. As Ashley regains her sense of self through the school's soccer program, Terri joins a writing group for adults led by Joshua Maxfield, a former literary wunderkind who has disappeared from the bestseller lists since his second book was panned by both critics and fans. Then tragedy strikes again and Ashley has to run for her life, unaware that the key to her survival is in the one book she's afraid to read -- Sleeping Beauty.
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#3 in the Women's Murder Club Series
Detective Lindsay Boxer is jogging along a beautiful San Francisco street when a fiery explosion rips through the neighborhood. When Lindsay searches for survivors, she finds three people dead. A lost infant and a mysterious message at the scene leaves Lindsay and the San Francisco Police Department completely baffled. Then a prominent businessman is found murdered under bizarre circumstances, with another mysterious message left behind by the killer. Lindsay asks her friends Claire Washburn of the medical examiner's office, Assistant D.A. Jill Bernhardt, and Chronicle reporter Cindy Thomas to help her figure out who is committing these murders—and why they are intent on killing someone every three days. Even more terrifying, the killer has targeted a member of the Women's Murder Club. Which one will it be?
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#12 in the Kay Scarpetta Series
Dr. Kay Scarpetta is settling into her new life as a private forensic consultant and is deep into a case that has left colleagues in Louisiana profoundly disturbed. A woman is found dead in a seedy hotel, dressed to go out, keys in her hand. Her history of blackouts, and her violent outbursts while under their spell, offer more questions than clues about the cause of her death. Then Scarpetta 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 friends and family by her side, Scarpetta tries to guess what sort of endgame this madman has in mind and how, if at all, it's related to the Louisiana case. She begins to unravel a twisting, international conspiracy 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.
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#2 in the Women's Murder Club Series
A brutal madman sprays bullets into a crowd of children leaving a San Francisco church. Miraculously-or was it intentionally?-only one person dies. Then an elderly black woman is hung. Police homicide inspector Lindsay Boxer senses a connection and together with medical examiner Claire, assistant D. A. Jill, and Chronicle reporter Cindy, finds a link that sends a chill through the entire nation. This killer's motives are unspeakable.
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#1 in the Lydia Strong Series
The childhood murder of her mother has turned Lydia Strong into a woman obsessed with bringing brutal killers to justice. The reclusive, bestselling true-crime writer and investigative consultant now spends her life chasing monsters. When three adults--loners, drifters--go missing, no one seems to notice except for Lydia. Enlisting the help of her friend, former FBI agent Jeffrey Mark, Lydia starts an investigation of her own. But when someone raises the stakes and goes after Lydia--just as fifteen years ago when she put the FBI on the trail of her mother's killer--the real hunt begins.
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#7 in the Alex Cross Series
Alex Cross has investigated macabre crime scenes. But the gruesome murders of two joggers in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park look like ritualistic killings that mimic the work of vampires, a solution local police and the FBI are quick to dismiss. Cross takes the case, sweeping him from Washington, DC, to Savannah, Las Vegas, New Orleans, and Los Angeles as he plunges into a netherworld of secret clubs, role-players, and posers. Evidence points to someone demented enough to have crossed the line from playacting to real blood. Someone like the merciless criminal known as the Mastermind, who's been lurking on the fringes, stalking, taunting, and threatening Alex Cross and everything he holds dear.
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#1 in the Grant County Series
A small Georgia town erupts in panic when a young college professor is found brutally mutilated in the local diner. But it's only when town pediatrician and coroner Sara Linton does the autopsy that the full extent of the killer's twisted work becomes clear. Sara's ex-husband, police chief Jeffrey Tolliver, leads the investigation—a trail of terror that grows increasingly macabre when another local woman is found crucified a few days later. But he's got more than a sadistic serial killer on his hands, because the county's only female detective, Lena Adams—the first victim's sister—wants to serve her own justice. But it is Sara who holds the key to finding the killer. A secret from her past could unmask the brilliantly malevolent psychopath... or mean her death.
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#1 in the Women's Murder Club Series
Each one holds a piece of the puzzle: Lindsay Boxer is a homicide inspector in the San Francisco Police Department, Claire Washburn is a medical examiner, Jill Bernhardt is an assistant D.A., and Cindy Thomas just started working the crime desk of the San Francisco Chronicle. But the usual procedures aren't bringing them any closer to stopping the killings. So these women form a Women's Murder Club to collaborate outside the box and pursue the case by sidestepping their bosses and giving each other a hand. The four women develop intense bonds as they pursue a killer whose crimes have stunned an entire city. Working together, they track down the most terrifying and unexpected killer they have ever encountered—before a shocking conclusion in which everything they knew turns out to be devastatingly wrong.
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#11 in the Kay Scarpetta Series
Thwarting an attack by a suspected serial killer has inconceivably put Virginia's Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta in the harsh glare of the spotlight. As her personal and professional lives come under suspicion, she discovers that the so-called Werewolf murders may have extended to New York City and into the darkest corners of her past. A formidable prosecutor, a female assistant district attorney from New York, is brought into the case—and Scarpetta must struggle to make what she knows to be the truth prevail against mounting and unnerving evidence to the contrary. Tested in every way, she turns inward to ask, Where do you go when there is nowhere left?
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#1 in the Amanda Jaffe Series
Thursday: Subject is still combative after four days of applied pain, sleep deprivation and minimal food. Vice squad detective Bobby Vasquez, for months on the trail of a slippery underworld figure, receives an anonymous tip that directs him to a mountain cabin. He races through the idyllic Oregon woods, expecting to close the book on a long-standing vendetta. What he finds instead opens a Pandora's box of horror that will haunt him to his dying day. 8:10: Subject bound and gaffed and placed in upstairs closet at end of hall. Turned out lights in house, drove off, then parked and doubled back. Watched from woods. Within hours, Vincent Cordoni -- a brilliant surgeon with a history of violence and drug abuse -- is arrested for a heinous crime. Facing a seemingly insurmountable wall of evidence, he turns to Portland's top criminal defense attorney, Frank Jaffe-who, along with his ambitious daughter, Amanda, must put on an inspired defense. Amanda's first taste of criminal defense work is as intoxicating as it is chilling, but it raises moral questions she's loath to address. Is she defending an innocent man? Or is she using her considerable skills to set a monster free? Then Cardoni disappears under bizarre circumstances. Four years later, a second set of murders has begun .... 8:55: Subject exits house, naked and barefoot, armed with kitchen knife. Remarkable strength of character. Breaking her will be a challenge. Has Cardoni resurfaced to ply his deadly trade anew? Is there a copycat killer? Or has the real killer been someone else all along? The police will do everything they can to stop Cardoni -- but they have to find him first. Following a twisting trail of clues, including a harrowing diary that clinically records the killer's horrible deeds, Amanda Jaffe and Bobby Vasquez join the hunt-and themselves become targets of the twenty-first century's first genuinely monstrous psychopath.
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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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The product of a long line of hunters, shamans, and healers, Diana Jackman grew up surrounded by wilderness. A natural-born tracker, she and seven other hunters have gathered in the remote and treacherous snow-covered tundra of northern British Columbia in pursuit of white-tail deer. And while the group may be isolated, they are not alone. Deep in the woods, a vicious force watches, waits, and stalks its targets. When the hunters become the hunted, Diana will learn—for the first time in her life—what it's like to be prey. In the blinding white wilderness of the Canadian winter, one by one, the members of her crew are stalked by a ruthlessly efficient hunter. Diana soon realizes that her only options are to kill or be killed—and she'll have to draw from all the knowledge and skill in her arsenal to survive the predator lurking in the trees...
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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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Journalist Gideon McCarthy is burnt-out and struggling to keep his life together after years of chasing deadlines. The competition is ruthless, the quest for the next byline relentless. But when a series of murders rocks his Southern California beat, Gideon soon learns that there is a dangerous line between truth and journalism... Sinking his teeth into the news story of a lifetime could prove to be Gideon's career salvation, but when a deranged killer is at large, and digging too deep puts a target on his own back, Gideon must decide just how far he's willing to go for the sake of the story.
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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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In Portland, Oregon, the wives of several prominent businessmen have disappeared without a trace, leaving behind only a black rose and a note with a simple message: "Gone, But Not Forgotten." An identical series of disappearances occurred in Hunter's Point, New York, ten years ago—but the killer was caught, the case was closed and the special "rose killer" task force was disbanded. Betsy Tannenbaum, a Portland wife and mother who has gained national recognition as a feminist defense attorney, is retained by multimillionaire Portland developer Martin Darius—for no apparent reason. Nancy Gordon, a homicide detective for the Hunter's Point Police Department and an original member of the "rose killer" task force, hasn't slept a full night in ten years, haunted by nightmares of a sadistic killer who, she swears, is still out there. . . Alan Page, the Portland district attorney, trying to make sense of the sudden series of disappearances, opens his front door one evening to find Nancy Gordon on his doorstep—determined to tell him a story he won't soon forget. Across the country, in Washington, D.C., the President of the United States has just selected United States Senator Raymond Colby to be the next Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. In a private meeting, Colby assures the President there are no skeletons in his closet.
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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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#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.
