The fingerprints say the murderer is the man who's just been executed ... At 11.05 one December evening in Richmond, Virginia, convicted murderer Ronnie Joe Waddell is pronounced dead in the electric chair. At the morgue Dr Kay Scarpetta waits for Waddell's body. Preparing to perform a post-mortem before the subject is dead is a strange feeling, but Scarpetta has been here before. And Waddell's death is not the only newsworthy event on this freezing night: the grotesquely wounded body of a young boy is found propped against a rubbish skip. To Scarpetta the two cases seem unrelated, until she recalls that the body of Waddell's victim had been arranged in a strikingly similar position ...
Anna Rusconi Books






Unnatural Exposure
- 384 pages
- 14 hours of reading
Dr Kay Scarpetta has begun to think the state of Virginia is the most recent stop on the travels of a psychopath, but before she can properly liaise with colleagues in different states and different countries, another body is found. Like the others it is discovered on a waste site, but Scarpetta sees evidence which makes her doubt it is the work of the same killer. As she follows the forensic footprints the victim's life draws her away from seeing the death as an individual killing, and leads her to face the probability that someone is on the point of releasing the smallpox virus back into a world which believes the disease has been eradicated - a belief which has led to all stocks of the vaccine being destroyed. Could such a mass murderer really exist, and what sort of mind would contemplate releasing such havoc? Point Of Origin, the new Scarpetta hardback, will be published in September 1998
Rebus is off the case literally. A few days into a murder inquiry following the brutal death of an Edinburgh art dealer, Rebus blows up at DCS Gill Templer. He is sent to the Scottish Police College for 'retraining' in other words, he's in the Last Chance Saloon. Rebus is given an old, unsolved case to work on, in order to teach him and others the merits of teamwork. But there are those in the team who have their own secrets and they'll stop at nothing to protect them. As if this wasn't enough, Rebus is asked to act as a go between for gangster 'Big Ger' Cafferty. And as newly promoted DS Siobhan Clarke works the case of the murdered art dealer, she is brought closer to Cafferty than she could ever have anticipated ...
When three bodies are discovered at Queensbury House, home to the new Scottish Parliament, Rebus finds himself digging up secrets twenty years buried.
From Potter's field
- 416 pages
- 15 hours of reading
Dr. Kay Scarpetta matches wits with a sadistic killer who infiltrates the FBI's top-secret artificial intelligence system and closes in on Scarpetta herself.
The body farm
- 324 pages
- 12 hours of reading
The Body Farm is a remote facility in the foothills of Virginia where a team of experts assess how bodies deteriorate in various conditions. Dr Kay Scarpetta is in need of their knowledge when she and her police colleagues are asked to investigate the murder of a young girl.
Alain de Botton pairs six philosophers - Socrates, Epicurus, Seneca, Montaigne, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche - with six everyday problems to which they are able to give the most helpful and fascinating answers.
The Naming of the Dead
- 416 pages
- 15 hours of reading
The brilliant new Rebus novel from 'Britain's No. 1 crime writer' [Daily Mirror].
An Alternate Cover Edition for this ISBN can be found here. The meticulously dismembered body of a woman is discovered in the grounds of an abandoned monastery. 'Too decomposed for standard autopsy. Request anthropologic expertise.' Enter Dr Temperance Brennan, Director of Forensic Anthropology for the province of Quebec, who has been researching recent disappearances in the city. Despite the cynicism of Detective Claudel who heads the investigation, Brennan is convinced that a serial killer is at work. Her forensic expertise finally convinces Claudel, but only after the body count has risen... Tempe takes matters into her own hands, but her determined probing places those closest to her in mortal danger. Can Tempe make her crucial breakthrough before the killer strikes again?
Il bambino con i petali in tasca
- 219 pages
- 8 hours of reading
Bombay, 1993. Chamdi ha dieci anni e vive alle porte della città, lontano dai violenti scontri tra induisti e musulmani, dalle moschee bruciate e dai negozi svaligiati. La sua non è una vera casa, è un orfanotrofio, perché i genitori lo hanno abbandonato appena nato. Il suo mondo è fatto del colore acceso delle bouganville, delle canzoni, dei giochi. E delle preghiere silenziose perché qualcuno arrivi e lo porti via. Ma lui ha un grande sogno, che Bombay si trasformi in una città senza tristezza, un luogo in cui i bambini possono giocare per le strade e in cui non ci sono figli senza genitori. Chamdi sa che quella degli orfani è una vita a metà, i loro occhi non splendono, hanno solo una luce presa in prestito: per questo sembrano tristi anche quando ridono. Così decide di andarsene, di partire alla ricerca del padre, con in tasca una manciata di petali di bouganville. Perdendosi per i vicoli sporchi e affollati, Chamdi incontra Sumdi e la sorella Guddi, che per strada ci vivono fin dalla nascita. E in breve si trova a chiedere l'elemosina insieme a una spaventosa corte dei miracoli al servizio di un bandito senza pietà. Eppure Chamdi non vuole abbandonare i suoi sogni, e quando Guddi sarà in pericolo di vita, scoprirà quanto sia fragile l'innocenza ma quanto forte possa essere l'amicizia.



