Chaos: A Scarpetta Novel (Kay Scarpetta)

 

I've finished "Chaos" the 24th book in her Kay Scarpetta series by Patricia Cornwell.

Product Description

#1 New York Times bestselling author Patricia Cornwell returns with another scintillating 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.

In this latest in the bestselling series featuring medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta, Cornwell shows us once again why she is the world’s number one bestselling crime writer, mistress of the shocking turns, delicious thrills, and state-of-the-art forensic details that all fans of suspense have come to love.

About the Author

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'Aventure prize - the first book ever to claim all these distinctions in a single year.

Today, Cornwell's novels and now iconic characters, medical examiner Kay Scarpetta, her niece Lucy and fellow investigator Pete Marino, are known all over the world. Fox 2000 is actively developing a feature film about Kay Scarpetta. Beyond the Scarpetta series, Patricia has written a definitive account of Jack the Ripper's identity, cookbooks, a children's book, a biography of Ruth Graham, and two other fiction series based on the characters Win Garano and Andy Brazil.

Cornwell was born in Miami, grew up in Montreat, North Carolina, and now lives and works in Boston.

Visit the author's website at: www.patriciacornwell.com

Product Details
Series: Kay Scarpetta (Book 24)
Hardcover: 400 pages
Publisher: William Morrow (November 15, 2016)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0062436686
ISBN-13: 978-0062436689

My Review:

3/5

Depraved Heart: A Scarpetta Novel (Kay Scarpetta)

 

I've finished "Depraved Heart" the 23rd book in her Kay Scarpetta series by Patricia Cornwell.

Product Description

Patricia Cornwell delivers the newest engrossing thriller in her high-stakes series starring medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta.

Dr. Kay Scarpetta is working a suspicious death scene in Cambridge, Massachusetts when an emergency alert sounds on her phone. A video link lands in her text messages and seems to be from her computer genius niece Lucy. But how can it be? It’s clearly a surveillance film of Lucy taken almost twenty years ago.

As Scarpetta watches she begins to learn frightening secrets about her niece, whom she has loved and raised like a daughter. That film clip and then others sent soon after raise dangerous legal implications that increasingly isolate Scarpetta and leave her confused, worried, and not knowing where to turn. She doesn’t know whom she can tell — not her FBI husband Benton Wesley or her investigative partner Pete Marino. Not even Lucy.

In this new novel, Cornwell launches these unforgettable characters on an intensely psychological odyssey that includes the mysterious death of a Hollywood mogul’s daughter, aircraft wreckage on the bottom of the sea in the Bermuda Triangle, a grisly gift left in the back of a crime scene truck, and videos from the past that threaten to destroy Scarpetta’s entire world and everyone she loves. The diabolical presence behind what unfolds seems obvious — but strangely, not to the FBI. Certainly that’s the message they send when they raid Lucy’s estate and begin building a case that could send her to prison for the rest of her life.

In the latest novel in her bestselling series featuring chief medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta, Cornwell will captivate readers with the shocking twists, high-wire tension, and cutting-edge forensic detail that she is famous for, proving yet again why she’s the world’s #1 bestselling crime writer.

Product Details
Series: Kay Scarpetta (Book 23)
Hardcover: 480 pages
Publisher: William Morrow; First Edition first Printing edition (October 27, 2015)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 006232540X
ISBN-13: 978-0062325402

My Review:

3/5

Flesh and Blood: A Scarpetta Novel (Kay Scarpetta)

 

I've finished "Flesh and Blood" the 22nd book in her Kay Scarpetta series by Patricia Cornwell.

Product Description

It’s Dr. Kay Scarpetta’s birthday, and she’s about to head to Miami for a vacation with Benton Wesley, her FBI profiler husband, when she notices seven pennies on a wall behind their Cambridge house. Is this a kids’ game? If so, why are all of the coins dated 1981 and so shiny they could be newly minted? Her cellphone rings, and Detective Pete Marino tells her there’s been a homicide five minutes away. A high school music teacher has been shot with uncanny precision as he unloaded groceries from his car. No one has heard or seen a thing.

In this 22nd Scarpetta novel, the master forensic sleuth finds herself in the unsettling pursuit of a serial sniper who leaves no incriminating evidence except fragments of copper. The shots seem impossible, yet they are so perfect they cause instant death. The victims appear to have had nothing in common, and there is no pattern to indicate where the killer will strike next. First New Jersey, then Massachusetts, and then the murky depths off the coast of South Florida, where Scarpetta investigates a shipwreck, looking for answers that only she can discover and analyze. And it is there that she comes face to face with shocking evidence that implicates her techno genius niece, Lucy, Scarpetta’s own flesh and blood.

About the Author

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'Aventure prize - the first book ever to claim all these distinctions in a single year.

Today, Cornwell's novels and now iconic characters, medical examiner Kay Scarpetta, her niece Lucy and fellow investigator Pete Marino, are known all over the world. Fox 2000 is actively developing a feature film about Kay Scarpetta. Beyond the Scarpetta series, Patricia has written a definitive account of Jack the Ripper's identity, cookbooks, a children's book, a biography of Ruth Graham, and two other fiction series based on the characters Win Garano and Andy Brazil.

Cornwell was born in Miami, grew up in Montreat, North Carolina, and now lives and works in Boston.

Visit the author's website at: www.patriciacornwell.com

Product Details
Series: Kay Scarpetta Series (Book 22)
Hardcover: 369 pages
Publisher: William Morrow; 1st edition (November 11, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0062325345
ISBN-13: 978-0062325341

My Review:

3/5

Dust (A Scarpetta Novel) Hardcover

I've finished "Dust" the 21st book in her Kay Scarpetta series by Patricia Cornwell.

From the world’s number-one bestselling crime writer comes the extraordinary new Kay Scarpetta novel.

Massachusetts Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta has just returned from working one of the worst mass murders in U.S. history when she’s awakened at an early hour by Detective Pete Marino.

A body, oddly draped in an unusual cloth, has just been discovered inside the sheltered gates of MIT and it’s suspected the identity is that of missing computer engineer Gail Shipton, last seen the night before at a trendy Cambridge bar. It appears she’s been murdered, mere weeks before the trial of her $100 million lawsuit against her former financial managers, and Scarpetta doubts it’s a coincidence. She also fears the case may have a connection with her computer genius niece, Lucy.

At a glance there is no sign of what killed Gail Shipton, but she’s covered with a fine dust that under ultraviolet light fluoresces brilliantly in three vivid colors, what Scarpetta calls a mineral fingerprint. Clearly the body has been posed with chilling premeditation that is symbolic and meant to shock, and Scarpetta has reason to worry that the person responsible is the Capital Murderer, whose most recent sexual homicides have terrorized Washington, D.C. Stunningly, Scarpetta will discover that her FBI profiler husband, Benton Wesley, is convinced that certain people in the government, including his boss, don’t want the killer caught.

In Dust, Scarpetta and her colleagues are up against a force far more sinister than a sexual predator who fits the criminal classification of a “spectacle killer.” The murder of Gail Shipton soon leads deep into the dark world of designer drugs, drone technology, organized crime, and shocking corruption at the highest levels.

About the Author

PATRICIA CORNWELL’s most recent bestsellers include The Bone Bed, Red Mist, Port Mortuary, and Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper — Case Closed. Her earlier works include Postmortem—the only novel to win five major crime awards in a single year — and Cruel and Unusual, which won Britain’s prestigious Gold Dagger Award for the best crime novel of 1993. Dr. Kay Scarpetta herself won the 1999 Sherlock Award for the best detective created by an American author.

Product Details
Series: A Scarpetta Novel (Book 21)
Hardcover: 512 pages
Publisher: Putnam Adult; First Edition edition (November 12, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0399157573
ISBN-13: 978-0399157578

My Review:

3.5/5

The Bone Bed (A Scarpetta Novel) [Hardcover]

I've finished "The Bone Bed" 20th book in her Kay Scarpetta series by Patricia Cornwell.

Product Description

A woman has vanished while digging a dinosaur bone bed in the remote wilderness of Canada. Somehow, the only evidence has made its way to the inbox of Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta, over two thousand miles away in Boston. She has no idea why. But as events unfold with alarming speed, Scarpetta begins to suspect that the paleontologist’s disappearance is connected to a series of crimes much closer to home: a gruesome murder, inexplicable tortures, and trace evidence from the last living creatures of the dinosaur age.

When she turns to those around her, Scarpetta finds that the danger and suspicion have penetrated even her closest circles. Her niece Lucy speaks in riddles. Her lead investigator, Pete Marino, and FBI forensic psychologist and husband, Benton Wesley, have secrets of their own. Feeling alone and betrayed, Scarpetta is tempted by someone from her past as she tracks a killer both cunning and cruel.

This is Kay Scarpetta as you have never seen her before. The Bone Bed is a must read for any fan of this series, or an ideal starting point for new readers.

About the Author

PATRICIA CORNWELL’s most recent bestsellers include Red Mist, Port Mortuary, and Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper — Case Closed. Her earlier works include Postmortem — the only novel to win five major crime awards in a single year — and Cruel and Unusual, which won Britain’s prestigious Gold Dagger Award for the best crime novel of 1993. Dr. Kay Scarpetta herself won the 1999 Sherlock Award for the best detective created by an American author.

Product Details
Reading level: Ages 18 and up
Hardcover: 480 pages
Publisher: Putnam Adult; First Edition edition (October 16, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0399157565
ISBN-13: 978-0399157561

My Review:

The Bone Bed returns Kay Scarpetta back to her roots with a very truly terrifying case.  It's like a continuation from "The Last Precinct with a strong, independent no-nonsense vulnerable older Scarpetta.  It was a more personal journey for Kay with her noticing that she is no longer a 20 or 30 year old anymore.  She is having problems with Benton her FBI husband who is keeping secrets about his relationship with a new partner, Marino with his new Twitter obsession and Lucy her niece.

As Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta investigates a case where a woman has vanished while digging a dinosaur bone bed in the remote wilderness of Canada she connects it to recent crimes at home - gruesome murder, horrifying torture and trace evidence from an ancient turtle the last living creature from the dinosaur age.

This was a terrifying and dark book with Scarpetta trying to figure out a riddle which involves a severed ear, an ancient but endangered leather back turtle and a dead mostly mummified woman's body from the cold bay.

5/5