Dr. Kay Scarpetta has left Virgina in quest of peace, but instead finds herself drawn into baffling, horrific murders in Florida, where she becomes entangled in an international conspiracy that confronts her with the shock of her life.

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.

Against her own judgement, Kay Scarpetta agrees to return to Virginia as a consultant pathologist on the case involving the death of a 14-year-old girl. Soon Kay is investigating the probability that someone is after those closest to her.

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.

Florida is full of predators, from the animals who thrive in its heat to the humans who stalk the malls, and they all give Dr. Kay Scarpetta, a forensics specialist, the opportunity and the means to do what she does best: persuading the dead to speak to her.

The "book of the dead" is the morgue log in which all cases are entered. For Kay Scarpetta, however, it is about to have a new meaning. She moves to South Carolina in the hope of a quieter life, but then a series of violent murders begins.

It is the week before Christmas. The effects of the credit crunch have prompted Dr Kay Scarpetta to offer her services pro bono to New York City’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. But in no time at all, her increased visibility precipitates a string of dramatic and unsettling events. She is asked live on the air about the sensational case of Hannah Starr, who has vanished and is presumed dead.

Leaving behind her forensic pathology practice in South Carolina, Kay Scarpetta takes up an assignment in New York City, where the NYPD has asked her to examine an injured patient in a psychiatric ward. The handcuffed and chained patient, Oscar Bane, has specifically asked for her, and he begins to talk. He says his injuries were sustained in the course of a murder... that he did not commit.

Kay Scarpetta has been training at the Dover Port Mortuary, mastering the art of ‘virtual autopsy’ - a groundbreaking procedure that could soon revolutionise forensic science. And it is not too long before these new skills urgently need to be put into practice. A young man drops dead, apparently from a heart condition, eerily close to Scarpetta’s home.

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.

In Alberta, Canada, an eminent paleontologist disappears from a dinosaur dig site, and at the Cambridge Forensic Center, Kay Scarpetta receives a grisly communication that gives her a dreadful reason to suspect this may become her next case. Then, with shocking speed, events begin to unfold.

A body recovered from Boston Harbor reveals bizarre trace evidence hinting of a link to other unsolved cases that seem to have nothing in common. Who is behind all this? And whom can Scarpetta trust?

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.

The body of a woman has been discovered inside the gates of MIT, draped in an unusual cloth. An examination reveals that the body is covered in a fine dust that under ultra-violet light fluoresces blood-red, emerald-green and sapphire-blue. As Kay Scarpetta pieces together the evidence, she draws herself and her team deeper into the dark world of designer drugs, drone technology and shocking corruption at the highest level.

It's a sunny morning in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and also Dr. Kay Scarpetta's birthday. 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 home. Is this a kids' game? And 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. Yet no one has heard or seen a thing.

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.