Anna Rusconi Books

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 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 ...

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

Christmas had never been a particularly good time for Dr Kay Scarpetta. Although a holiday for most, it always seem to heighten the alienation felt by society's violent fringe; and that usually means more work for Scarpetta, Virginia's Chief Medical ExaminerI. The body was naked, female and found propped against a fountain in a bleak area of New York's Central Park. Her apparent manner of death points to a modus operandi that is chillingly familiar: the gunshot wound to the head, the sections of skin excised from the body, the displayed corpse - all suggest that Temple Brooks Gault, Scarpetta's nemesis, is back at work. Calling on all her reserves of courage and skill, and the able assistance of colleagues Marino and Wesley, Scarpetta must track this most dangerous of killers in pursuit of survival as well as justice - heading inexorably to an electrifying climax amid the dark, menacing labyrinths of the New York subway. For more about Patricia Cornwell and her books visit her website at www.patricia-cornwell.com

The fifth novel in the best-selling Dr Kay Scarpetta series.

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 ...

The brilliant new Rebus novel from 'Britain's No. 1 crime writer' [Daily Mirror].

Edinburgh is about to become the home of the first Scottish parliament in nigh on 300 years. As political passions run high, DI John Rebus is charged with liaison, thanks to the new parliament being resident in Queensbury House, bang in the middle of his patch. But Queensbury House has its own, dark past. Legend has it that a young man was roasted there on a spit by a madman. When the fireplace where the youth died is uncovered another more recent murder victim is found. Days later, in the gardens outside, there is a third body. This victim is Roddy Grieve, a prospective MSP, and Rebus is under pressure to find instant answers. As the case proceeds, the Inspector finds himself face to face with one of Edinburgh's most notorious criminals...

Dr. Kay Scarpetta, a forensic pathologist and her colleagues, investigates a couple killer.

See where the smash #1 New York Times bestselling Temperance Brennan “cleverly plotted and expertly maintained” (The New York Times) series all began with Deja Dead, the first installment from forensic anthropologist and internationally bestselling thriller writer Kathy Reichs. Her life is devoted to justice—for those she never even knew. In the year since Temperance Brennan left behind a shaky marriage in North Carolina, work has often preempted her weekend plans to explore Quebec. When a female corpse is discovered meticulously dismembered and stashed in trash bags, Temperance detects an alarming pattern—and she plunges into a harrowing search for a killer. But her investigation is about to place those closest to her—her best friend and her own daughter—in mortal danger...