Winner of the Crime Thriller of the Year at the Galaxy British Book Awards 2008. The 15th book is here and will not disappoint. The plot lines are as gripping as ever and the crime scenes are as gruesome as we’ve come to expect. It would help if you have read some of the previous novels as there are references to characters and plots, with not much in the way of explanation, and for die-hard fans they may be surprised at some of the character twists but Patricia Cornwell still does not fail to deliver a cracking crime novel.
The 'book of the dead' is the morgue log, the ledger in which all cases are entered by hand. For Kay Scarpetta, however, it is about to have a new meaning.
Fresh from her bruising battle with a psychopath in Florida, Scarpetta decides it’s time for a change of pace. Moving to the historic city of Charleston, South Carolina, she opens a unique private forensic pathology practice, one in which she and her colleagues - including Pete Marino and her niece Lucy - offer expert crime scene investigation and autopsies to communities lacking local access to competent death investigation and modern technology.
It seems like an ideal situation, until the new battles start - with local politicians, with entrenched interests, with someone whose covert attempts at sabotage are clearly meant to run her out of town. And that’s even before the murders and other violent deaths begin.
A young man from a prominent family jumps off a water tower. A woman is found ritualistically murdered in her multi-million-dollar beach home. The body of an abused young boy is found dumped in a desolate marsh.
Scarpetta has dealt with many brutal and unusual crimes before, but never a string of them as baffling, or as terrifying, as the ones before her now. Before she is through, that book of the dead will contain many names - and the pen may be poised to write her own.
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.
