In Scarpetta, Patricia Cornwell has a character as strong as any in popular fiction"Wall Street JournalNew York Times bestselling author Patricia Cornwell delivers the newest engrossing thriller in her high-stakes series starring medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta.Depraved Heart: Void of social duty and fatally bent on mischief.Mayes v. People, 806 III. 306 (1883)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? Its 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 doesnt know whom she can tellnot 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 moguls 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 Scarpettas entire world and everyone she loves. The diabolical presence behind what unfolds seems obviousbut strangely, not to the FBI. Certainly thats the message they send when they raid Lucys 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 shes the worlds #1 bestselling crime writer.
