Now available in a tall Premium Edition, the novel that introduces one of suspense fiction's most compelling heroines--Dr. Kay Scarpetta--from a #1 "New York Times"-bestselling author. Reissue.

Scarpetta, an all-new Original Series, is coming soon to Prime Video! Enter the chilling and captivating world of Dr. Kay Scarpetta before Nicole Kidman and Jamie Lee Curtis bring the mystery to life onscreen. “The new audience will be compelled by the characters, crimes, and mysteries that are the trifecta of Patricia’s masterful storytelling… and a warning……there WILL be BLOOD.” – Jamie Lee Curtis #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Dr. Kay Scarpetta is on a deadly mission that will pull her in two opposite directions: toward protecting her career or toward the truth . . . The nightmare begins when a cargo ship arriving at Richmond’s Deep Water Terminal from Belgium is discovered to be transporting a locked, sealed container holding the decomposed remains of a stowaway. The autopsy performed by Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta initially reveals neither cause of death nor an identification. But the victim’s personal effects and an odd tattoo take Scarpetta on a hunt for information that leads to Interpol’s headquarters in Lyon, France, where she receives critical instructions: Go to the Paris morgue to receive forbidden, secret evidence and then return to Virginia to carry out a mission. It is a mission that could ruin her career—and places her and the ones she holds dear at mortal risk.

Now freelancing from South Florida, Dr. Kay Scarpetta returns to her old haunts in Richmond, Virginia, only to encounter a host of baffling and unwelcome surprises as she investigates the death of a fourteen-year-old girl. Reprint.

Dispatched by the district attorney to a declining Massachusetts neighborhood to address a case related to a new public relations campaign, state investigator Win Garano becomes involved with a loosely organized association of vigilante police officers.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author, a "hauntingly original, impossibly clever and devilishly daring" thriller in which Scarpetta receives a message from beyond the grave, with SCARPETTA soon to be a streaming series starring Nicole Kidman and Jamie Lee Curtis. (Chris Whitaker, author of All the Colors of the Dark) Autopsies can reveal the secrets of the dead. And this victim is sending Scarpetta a message... Summoned to an abandoned theme park to retrieve a body, Dr. Kay Scarpetta is devastated to learn that the victim is a man she once had an intense love affair with. The murder scene is bizarre, with a crop circle of petals around the body, and Giordano’s skin is strangely red. Scarpetta’s niece Lucy believes he was dropped from an unidentified flying craft. Scarpetta knows an autopsy can reveal the dead’s secrets, but she is shocked to find her friend seems to have deliberately left her a clue. As the investigators are torn between suspicions of otherworldly forces, and of Giordano himself, Scarpetta detects an explanation closer to home that, in her mind, is far more evil...

"Dazzling. . . . Fascinating. . . . .A first-rate thriller". Says "The Los Angeles Times" of "Postmortem", in which medical examiner Kay Scarpetta sets out to unmask a maniac who is leaving behind a gruesome trail of carnage--and very few clues.

The inspiration for the Prime Video series Scarpetta—starring Nicole Kidman and Jamie Lee Curtis! #1 bestselling author Patricia Cornwell returns to the chilling world of gutsy medical examiner Kay Scarpetta in this classic forensic thriller. 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.

Medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta struggles to find leads to the identity of a serial killer who has murdered five couples in Richmond, Virginia, meticulously leaving no clues behind.

Scarpetta, an all-new Original Series, is coming soon to Prime Video! Enter the chilling and captivating world of Dr. Kay Scarpetta before Nicole Kidman and Jamie Lee Curtis bring the mystery to life onscreen. “The new audience will be compelled by the characters, crimes, and mysteries that are the trifecta of Patricia’s masterful storytelling… and a warning……there WILL be BLOOD.” – Jamie Lee Curtis Dr. Kay Scarpetta’s investigation leads her into a terrifying terrain of conspiracy and potential terrorism on an international scale in this red-hot thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Patricia Cornwell. On her quest to find out exactly what happened to her former deputy chief, Jack Fielding, murdered six months before, Dr. Kay 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 agent husband, Benton Wesley, Scarpetta is determined to hear this woman out. The quest is personal, but also professional. As the director of the new Cambridge Forensic Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and with her connection to the Department of Defense, Scarpetta has urgent reasons to learn more about a string of grisly killings that she feels are somehow linked to Fielding’s death. The murder of a Savannah family years earlier, a young woman on death row, and then other explicable deaths that begin to occur at a breathtaking pace—all of these are related, but who is behind them, and why? Driven by inner forces, Scarpetta discovers connections that compel her to conclude that what she thought ended with Fielding’s death and an attempt on her own life is only the beginning of something far more destructive. . . . And she’s the only one who can stop it.

Scarpetta, an all-new Original Series, is coming soon to Prime Video! Enter the chilling and captivating world of Dr. Kay Scarpetta before Nicole Kidman and Jamie Lee Curtis bring the mystery to life onscreen. “The new audience will be compelled by the characters, crimes, and mysteries that are the trifecta of Patricia’s masterful storytelling… and a warning……there WILL be BLOOD.” – Jamie Lee Curtis #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In this “gripping” (People) thriller, the clues to a series of remorseless killings go up in smoke—and only Kay Scarpetta can find them. “[Point of Origin] sears its way into the psyche . . . ablaze with Cornwell’s finest, scariest writing.”—Atlanta Journal-Constitution 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. . . .