Kay Scarpetta

Four young women have been found murdered—tortured and strangled in their own beds—all victims of the same brilliant monster. Using a skilled hand and the latest technology in forensic medicine, Kay Scarpetta begins the process of gathering the microscopic clues the latest battered body has to give.

Under cover of night in Richmond, Virginia, a human monster strikes, leaving a gruesome trail of stranglings that has paralysed the city. Medical examiner Kay Scarpetta suspects the worst: a deliberate campaign by a brilliant serial killer whose signature offers precious few clues. With an unerring eye, she calls on the latest advances in forensic research to unmask the madman.

Late one night Beryl Madison turns off her burglar alarm, puts down her gun and opens her door to the man who has stalked and terrorized her for months. Hours later, her brutally mutilated body lies in the city morgue. As Scarpetta begins searching for the microscopic clues to the killer’s identity, one question keeps nagging her: why did Beryl let him in?

A reclusive author, Beryl Madison finds no safe haven from months of menacing phone calls - or the tormented feeling that her every move is being watched. When the writer is found slain in her own home, Kay Scarpetta pieces together the intricate forensic evidence - while unwittingly edging closer to a killer waiting in the shadows.

A serial killer is stalking Virginia’s young lovers, taking their lives and taunting police with a single clue: a jack of hearts. For two years, the meaning of this card has eluded FBI investigators. But as Scarpetta begins searching the victims’ remains for microscopic clues, she begins to suspect that someone in the FBI knows more about the murderer.

In Richmond, Virginia, young lovers are dying. So far, four couples in the area have disappeared, only to be found months later as mutilated corpses. When the daughter of the president's newest drug czar vanishes along with her boyfriend, Dr Kay Scarpetta knows time is short. Following a macabre trail of evidence that ties the present homicides to a grisly crime in the past, Kay must draw upon her own personal resources to track down a murderer who is as skilled at eliminating clues as Kay is at finding them.

When convicted killer Ronnie Joe Waddell is executed in Virginia’s electric chair, he becomes what should be a routine postmortem case for Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta. But after Waddell’s execution the murders continue, as everyone connected to him begins to die – including members of Scarpetta’s staff. Then, when crucial records disappear from her files, Scarpetta comes under fire for incompetence. Caught in a web of political intrigue, Scarpetta must fight for her good name and her life.

When an executed murderer’s fingerprints turn up at a new crime scene, Kay Scarpetta investigates. Prepare for the kind of riveting suspense this best-selling author delivers so well.

Little Emily Steiner left a church meeting late one afternoon and strolled toward home along a lakeside path; a week later, her nude body was discovered, bound in blaze-orange duct tape. Called by the North Carolina authorities, forensic pathologist Kay Scarpetta recognizes similarities to the gruesome work of a serial killer who has long eluded the FBI. But as she tries to make sense of the evidence, she is left with questions that lead her to the Body Farm, a little known research facility in Tennessee where, with the help of some grisly experiments, she might discover the answer.

New Year's Eve and the final murder scene of Virginia's bloodiest year takes Scarpetta 30 feet below the Elizabeth River's icy surface. A diver is dead. Ted Eddings, an investigative reporter who was a favourite at the Medical Examiner's office. Was Eddings probing the frigid depths for a story or simply diving for sunken trinkets? And why did Scarpetta receive a phone call reporting the death before the police were notified?

It's New Year's Eve, the final night of Virginia's bloodiest year since the Civil War, and another poor soul has turned up dead. Ted Eddings, a scuba diver and investigative reporter who was a favorite at the medical examiner's office, is found 30 feet below the Elizabeth River's icy surface. Kay Scarpetta, chief medical examiner for the state of Virginia, can't help but wonder why she received a phone call from someone reporting the death before the police were notified.

On a quiet day, away from the hustle of Richmond, in a small cottage on the Virginia coast, Dr. Kay Scarpetta receives a disturbing phone call from the Chesapeake police. Thirty feet deep in the murky waters of Virginia's Elizabeth River, a scuba diver's body is discovered near the Inactive Naval Shipyard.

The body of an elderly woman is found dismembered in a Virginia landfill. Scarpetta initially believes the clues mirror that of a serial killer she's tracked before. But upon further investigation, she discovers puzzling pox-like erruptions on the woman's body that, perhaps, point in another direction.

Dublin, Ireland and Richmond, Virginia: separated by thousands of miles - linked by murder. Five dismembered, beheaded bodies were found in Ireland five years ago - now four have been discovered in the States. But the tenth corpse in Virginia is different. A copy-cat killing. Ghoulish, perhaps, but not unusual. Then abject terror grips Scarpetta and her colleagues when the next body is found with a clear and horrifying message: the killer is armed with the most lethal weapon on earth - smallpox.

Carrie Grethen, partner in crime to William Temple Gault, has escaped from prison. Before she does so, she sends a message to Kay Scarpetta blaming her for Gault's death, and has specific plans for revenge.

Convicted serial killer Carrie Grethen has escaped from a psychiatric hospital with plans for revenge. Wary and shaken, Scarpetta also has to investigate the death by fire of an unknown woman. The post mortem reveals that the woman was stabbed before the fire was started, and soon Scarpetta and her colleagues are called out to the scene of another fire and another murder.

An intriguing Dr Kay Scarpetta book which will take Kay an ocean's breadth away from home. The decomposed remains of a stowaway lead Dr Kay Scarpetta on an international search to Interpol’s headquarters in Lyon, France - and on a mission that will pull her in two opposite directions: Toward protecting her career or toward the truth.

Following the post mortem of a stowaway that reveals neither cause of death nor identity, Dr. Kay Scarpetta travels to Paris in search of information. In Paris she is given a secret mission--one that could ruin her career.