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
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.
More About Patricia Cornwell