Following murder cases from the post-mortem through all the detective work is not usually the job of the medical examiner but Cornwell is such a good story teller one can suspend belief and simply get caught up in scrutinising the clues and racing along with the fast paced plot. This is the second in the series and will have you double checking the windows are locked and the doors are bolted before you go to bed!
The second novel in the best-selling Dr Kay Scarpetta series.
A reclusive writer is dead. And her final manuscript has disappeared ...
Someone is stalking Beryl Madison. Someone who spies on her and makes threatening, obscene phone-calls. Terrified, Beryl flees to Key West - but eventually she must return to her Richmond home. The very night she arrives, Beryl inexplicably invites her killer in ...
Thus begins for Dr Kay Scarpetta the investigation of a crime that is as convoluted as it is bizarre. Why would Beryl open the door to someone who brutally slashed and then nearly decapitated her? Did she know her killer? Adding to the intrigue is Beryl's enigmatic relationship with a prize-winning author and the disappearance of her own manuscript.
As Scarpetta retraces Beryl's footsteps, an investigation that begins in the laboratory with microscopes and lasers leads her deep into a nightmare that soon becomes her own.
'Cornwell is the one to beat when it comes to slick, speedy chillers' Sunday Telegraph
'A great writer ... read these books only in broad daylight' Daily Mail
'Head-under-bedclothes tension' The Times
Author
About Patricia Cornwell
Patricia Cornwell is one of the world’s major international best-selling authors, translated into thirty-six languages across more than fifty countries. She is a founder of the Virginia Institute of Forensic Science and Medicine, a founding member of the National Forensic Academy, a member of the New York OCME Forensic Sciences Training Program’s Advisory Board, and a member of the Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital’s National Council, where she is an advocate for psychiatric research.
In 2008 Cornwell won the Galaxy British Book Awards’ Books Direct Crime Thriller of the Year – the first American ever to win this prestigious award. Her most recent bestsellers include Scarpetta, Book of the Dead and The Front. Her earlier works include Postmortem – the only novel to win five major crime awards in a single year – and Cruel and Unusual, which won the coveted Gold Dagger award in 1993. Dr. Kay Scarpetta herself won the 1999 Sherlock Award for the best detective created by an American writer.
