About
Chaos Synopsis
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 hot late summer evening in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Dr. Kay Scarpetta and her investigative partner Pete Marino respond to a call about a dead bicyclist near the Kennedy School of Government.
It appears that a young woman has been attacked with almost super human force. Even before Scarpetta's headquarters, the Cambridge Forensic Center, has been officially notified about the case, Marino and Scarpetta's FBI agent husband Benton Wesley receive suspicious calls, allegedly from someone at Interpol. But it makes no sense. Why would the elite international police agency know about the case or be interested? With breathtaking speed it becomes apparently that an onslaught of interference and harassment might be the work of an anonymous cyberbully named Tailend Charlie, who has been sending cryptic communications to Scarpetta for over a week.
Stunningly, even her brilliant tech savvy niece Lucy can't trace whoever it is or how this person could have access to intimate information few outside the family would have. When a second death hundreds of miles south, shocking Scarpetta to her core, it becomes apparent she and those close her are confronted with something far bigger and more dangerous than they'd ever imagined. Then analysis of a mysterious residue recovered from a wound is identified as a material that doesn't exist on earth.
About This Edition
Press Reviews
Patricia Cornwell Press Reviews
Praise for Patricia Cornwell & the Kay Scarpetta Novels:
'Cutting-edge
Sun
'A pioneer of the genre of forensic psychological thriller'
BBC
'America's most stimulating and chilling writer of crime fiction'
The Times
'Devilishly clever'
Sunday Times
'She is a brilliant writer and I was absolutely gripped'
Mail on Sunday
'The top gun in this field'
Daily Telegraph
'Forget the pretenders. Cornwell reigns'
Mirror
'The Agatha Christie of the DNA age'
Express
'One of the best crime writers writing today'
Guardian
'Few writers match Patricia Cornwell when it comes to writing crime and her latest Scarpetta novel is one of her best'
Daily Express
'When it comes to the forensic sciences, nobody can touch Cornwell'
New York Times Book Review
'Dazzling... After reading Cornwell's thriller, most others will pale in comparison'
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
'Magnificent plotting, masterful writing, and marvelous suspense'
Booklist
'Cornwell's instincts are dead-on.'
Chicago Sun-Times
'Cornwell remains a master of the genre, instilling in readers an appetite that only she can satisfy'
Publishers Weekly
Author
About Patricia Cornwell
In 1990, Patricia Cornwell sold her first novel, Postmortem, while working at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Richmond, Virginia. An auspicious debut, it went on to win the Edgar, Creasey, Anthony, and Macavity Awards, as well as the French Prix du Roman d'Aventures - the first book ever to claim all these distinctions in a single year. Growing into an international phenomenon, the Scarpetta series won Cornwell the Sherlock Award for best detective created by an American author, the Gold Dagger Award, the RBA Thriller Award, and the Medal of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters for her contributions to literary and artistic development.
Today, Cornwell's novels and iconic characters are known around the world. Beyond the Scarpetta series, Cornwell has written the definitive nonfiction account of Jack the Ripper's identity, cookbooks, a children's book, a biography of Ruth Graham, and three other fictional series based on the characters Win Garano, Andy Brazil, and Captain Callie Chase. Cornwell continues exploring the latest space-age technologies and threats relevant to contemporary life. Her interests range from the morgue to artificial intelligence and include visits to Interpol, the Pentagon, the U.S. Secret Service and NASA.
Cornwell was born in Miami. She grew up in Montreat, North Carolina, and now lives and works in Boston.
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