Explore the latest books of this year!
Bookbot

Kay Scarpetta Series

This gripping series follows a brilliant forensic pathologist as she delves into the darkest corners of the human mind to uncover the truth behind the most brutal crimes. With each case, she confronts not only the perpetrators but also her own limitations and moral dilemmas. Her uncompromising approach and analytical skills lead her to expose hidden motives and culprits seeking to remain undetected. It's a fascinating journey into the world of forensic science and criminal psychology.

From Potter's field
The Body Farm
Cruel and Unusual
All that remains
Body of Evidence. Ein Mord für Kay Scarpetta, englische Ausgabe. Flucht, englische Ausgabe
Postmortem

Recommended Reading Order

  1. Postmortem

    • 404 pages
    • 15 hours of reading

    A serial killer is on the loose in Richmond, Virginia. Three women have died, brutalised and strangled in their own bedroom. There is no pattern: the killer appears to strike at random - but always early on Saturday mornings. So when Dr Kay Scarpetta, chief medical officer, is awakened at 2.33 am, she knows the news is bad: there is a fourth victim. And she fears now for those that will follow unless she can dig up new forensic evidence to aid the police. But not everyone is pleased to see a woman in this powerful job. Someone may even want to ruin her career and reputation ... For more about Patricia Cornwell and her books visit her website at www.patricia-cornwell.com

    Postmortem1
    4.1

  2. Body of Evidence. Ein Mord für Kay Scarpetta, englische Ausgabe. Flucht, englische Ausgabe

    A reclusive writer is dead. And her final manuscript has disappeared ...Someone is stalking Beryl Madison. Someone who spies on her and makes threatening, obscene phone-calls. Terrified, Beryl flees to Key West - but eventually she must return to her Richmond home. The very night she arrives, Beryl inexplicably invites her killer in ...Thus begins for Dr Kay Scarpetta the investigation of a crime that is as convoluted as it is bizarre. Why would Beryl open the door to someone who brutally slashed and then nearly decapitated her? Did she know her killer? Adding to the intrigue is Beryl's enigmatic relationship with a prize-winning author and the disappearance of her own manuscript. As Scarpetta retraces Beryl's footsteps, an investigation that begins in the laboratory with microscopes and lasers leads her deep into a nightmare that soon becomes her own.

    Body of Evidence. Ein Mord für Kay Scarpetta, englische Ausgabe. Flucht, englische Ausgabe2
    3.9

  3. All that remains

    • 438 pages
    • 16 hours of reading

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

    All that remains3
    3.3

  4. Cruel and Unusual

    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 ...

    Cruel and Unusual4
    4.2

  6. 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.

    From Potter's field6
    4.1

  7. Cause of Death

    • 356 pages
    • 13 hours of reading

    It is New Year's Eve and Dr. Kay Scarpetta plunges into the murky depths of a ship graveyard to recover he very human remains of Ted Eddings, an investigative reporter.

    Cause of Death7
    4.0

  8. 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

    Unnatural Exposure8
    4.1

  9. Point of Origin

    Medical examiner Kay Scarpetta's investigation of a killer who uses fire to hide his crimes turns personal when she learns that her old nemesis, Carrie Grethen, is somehow involved.

    Point of Origin9
    4.1

  10. Black Notice

    • 441 pages
    • 16 hours of reading

    The discovery of the decomposed body of a stowaway aboard a cargo ship leads Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta to a perilous international odyssey on a mission that could destroy her career and threatens her own life.

    Black Notice10
    3.9

  11. The last precinct

    • 468 pages
    • 17 hours of reading

    The new era of Scarpetta begins… In this #1 New York Times bestselling novel, Patricia Cornwell takes her readers deeper into Kay Scarpetta’s heart and soul than ever before…. Thwarting an attack by a suspected serial killer puts Virginia’s Chief Medial Examiner Kay Scarpetta in the harsh glare of the spotlight. As her personal and professional lives come under suspicion, she discovers that the so-called Werewolf murders may have extended to New York City and into the darkest corners of her past. A formidable prosecutor, a female assistant district attorney from New York, is brought into the case—and Scarpetta must struggle to make what she knows to be the truth prevail against mounting and unnerving evidence to the contrary. Tested in every way, she turns inward to ask, Where do you go when there is nowhere left?

    The last precinct11
    3.9

  12. Blow fly

    After her resignation as Virginia's Chief Medical Examiner and the horrifying events which threatened her life in THE LAST PRECINCT, Kay Scarpetta has abandoned her elegant home in Richmond and is quietly living in Florida, beginning to get some balance back in her life and slowly establishing herself as a private forensic consultant. But her past won't let her rest, and her grief for Benton Wesley continues to grow, not diminish, as does the rage within Lucy, her niece. Then the architect of her changed fortunes contacts her from his cell on death row: deformed, blinded by Scarpetta's own actions, incarcerated in Texas strongest prison, Jean-Baptiste Chardonne still has the ability to terrify. But, unkown to Scarpetta, there are other forces behind the wolfman's apparent actions, invisibly shepherding her and those closest to her towards eliminating those who threaten them all. And it is all orchestrated by the one man in her life who knows every nuance of her soul. Visit the author's website at www.patricia-cornwell.com

    Blow fly12
    3.8

  13. Trace

    • 435 pages
    • 16 hours of reading

    Now freelancing from south Florida, Dr. Kay Scarpetta returns to her old haunts in Richmond, Virginia, only to encounter a host of baffling and unwelcome surprises as she investigates the death of a fourteen-year-old girl.

    Trace13
    3.8

  14. Predator

    • 406 pages
    • 15 hours of reading

    Scarpetta, now freelancing with the National Forensic Academy in Florida, digs into a case more bizarre than any she has ever faced, one that has produced not only unusual physical evidence, but also tantalizing clues about the inner workings of an extremely cunning and criminal mind. She and her team --- Pete Marino, Benton Wesley, and her niece, Lucy --- track the odd connections between several horrific crimes and the people who are the likely suspects. As one psychopath, safely behind bars and the subject of a classified scientific study at a Harvard-affiliated psychiatric hospital, teases Scarpetta with tips that could be fact --- or fantasy --- the number of killers on the loose seems to multiply. Are these events related or merely random? And what can the study of one man's brain tell them about the methods of a psychopath still lurking in the shadows?

    Predator14
    3.7

  15. Book of the dead

    • 512 pages
    • 18 hours of reading

    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. Fresh from her battle with a psychopath in Florida, Scarpetta moves to South Carolina and opens a private forensic pathology practice. A string of brutal killings shatters her dreams of a quiet life.

    Book of the dead15
    3.7

  16. Scarpetta

    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 when she literally has her gloved hands on him, he begins to talk - and the story he has to tell turns out to be one of the most bizarre she has ever heard. He says his injuries were sustained in the course of a murder ... that he did not commit. Is Bane a criminally insane stalker who has fixed on Scarpetta? Or is his paranoid tale true, and it is he who is being spied on, followed and stalked by the actual killer? The only thing Scarpetta knows for certain is that a woman has been tortured and murdered - and that more violent deaths will follow...

    Scarpetta16
    3.8

  17. The Scarpetta Factor

    It is the week before Christmas. A tanking economy has prompted Dr. Kay Scarpetta - despite her busy schedule and her continuing work as the senior forensic analyst for CNN - to offer her services pro bono to New York City’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. In no time at all, her increased visibility seems to precipitate a string of unexpected and unsettling events. She is asked live on the air about the sensational case of Hannah Starr, who has vanished and is presumed dead. Moments later during the same telecast she receives a startling call-in from a former psychiatrist patient of Benton Wesley’s. When she returns after the show to the apartment where she and Benton live, she finds an ominous package - possibly a bomb - waiting for her at the front desk. Soon the apparent threat on Scarpetta's life finds her embroiled in a surreal plot that includes a famous actor accused of an unthinkable sex crime and the disappearance of a beautiful millionairess with whom Lucy seems to have shared a secret past. Scarpetta's CNN producer wants her to launch a TV show called The Scarpetta Factor. Given the bizarre events already in play, she fears that her growing fame will generate the illusion that she has a 'special factor,' a mythical ability to solve all her cases. She wonders if she will end up like other TV personalities - her own stereotype.

    The Scarpetta Factor17
    3.7

  18. Port Mortuary

    Port Mortuary, the title of Patricia Cornwell's eighteenth Scarpetta novel, is literally a port for the dead. In this fast-paced story, a treacherous path from Scarpetta's past merges with the high- tech highway she now finds herself on. We travel back to the beginning of her professional career, when she accepted a scholarship from the Air Force to pay off her medical school debt. Now, more than twenty years and many career successes later, her secret military ties have drawn her to Dover Air Force Base, where she has been immersed in a training fellowship. As the chief of the new Cambridge Forensic Center in Massachusetts, a joint venture of the state and federal governments, MIT and Harvard, Scarpetta is confronted with a case that could shut down her new facility and ruin her personally and professionally.

    Port Mortuary18
    3.6

  19. Red Mist

    Patholoog-anatoom dr. Kay Scarpetta raakt betrokken bij de geheimzinnige moord op enkele gevangenen.

    Red Mist19
    3.8

  20. The Bone Bed

    • 512 pages
    • 18 hours of reading

    A woman has vanished while digging a dinosaur bone bed in the remote wilderness of Canada. Somehow, the only evidence has made its way to the inbox of Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta, over two thousand miles away in Boston. She has no idea why. But as events unfold with alarming speed, Scarpetta begins to suspect the paleontologist's disappearance is connected to a series of crimes much closer to home: a gruesome murder, inexplicable tortures, and trace evidence from the last living creatures of the dinosaur age. When she turns to those around her, Scarpetta finds that the danger and suspicion have penetrated even her closest circles. Her niece Lucy speaks in riddles. Her lead investigator Pete Marino and FBI husband Benton Wesley have secrets of their own. Feeling alone and betrayed, Scarpetta is tempted by someone from her past as she tracks a killer both cunning and cruel.

    The Bone Bed20
    3.7

  21. Dust

    • 495 pages
    • 18 hours of reading

    After working on one of the worst mass killings in US history, Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta returns home to recover, but an unsettling call drives her straight back to work. The body of a young woman has been discovered inside the sheltered gates of MIT, draped in an unusual cloth and posed in a way that is too deliberate to be the killer's first strike. A preliminary examination reveals that the body is covered in a fine dust that under ultra-violet light fluoresces blood-red, emerald-green and sapphire-blue, and physical evidence links this to another series of disturbing homicides in Washington, DC. As Scarpetta pieces together the fragments of evidence she discovers that the cases connect, yet also seem to conflict, and with so much at stake, it's clear that she is the only one who can solve it . . . Dust is a thrilling, addictive novel featuring one of the most iconic, original and compelling characters in crime fiction today.

    Dust21
    3.6

  22. Flesh and blood

    No.1 bestselling author Patricia Cornwell delivers the next enthralling thriller in her high-stakes series starring Kay Scarpetta--a complex tale involving a serial sniper who strikes chillingly close to the forensic sleuth herself.

    Flesh and blood22
    3.5

  24. Chaos

    • 385 pages
    • 14 hours of reading

    "#1 New York Times bestselling author Patricia Cornwell delivers the twenty-fourth thriller in her high-stakes series starring medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta"--

    Chaos24
    3.6

Related books

  • Three Complete Novels. Postmortem. Body of Evidence. All That Remains

    Postmortem introduces Dr. Scarpetta, who knows the smell of bone dust from a skullcap saw and how to read a body for clues via lasers, DNA, and computers. As Scarpetta slowly closes in on a killer known as Mr. Nobody, she gets the creepy, well-informed feeling that the killer is closing in on her. Cornwell's debut swept the mystery-writing awards and made her somebody. In Body of Evidence, Scarpetta investigates the murder of a Southern writer who mysteriously opened the door for her killer. In All That Remains, she hunts a serial killer of young lovers--including the daughter of the president's drug czar, which complicates the forensic chase with political intrigue.

    Three Complete Novels. Postmortem. Body of Evidence. All That Remains
    4.4

  • Kay Scarpetta Thrillers

    • 1012 pages
    • 36 hours of reading

    Bundeling in een stevige band van drie spannende romans met patholoog-anatoom Kay Scarpetta in de hoofdrol. In 'Rigor mortis' onderzoekt ze de gruwelijke moord op een jongen. De werkwijze komt precies overeen met een moord waarvoor de moordenaar al is geëxecuteerd. Bij een andere moord worden de vingerafdrukken gevonden van diezelfde moordenaar. Kay heeft intussen het vermoeden, dat er iemand in haar computerbestanden heeft zitten rommelen. Haar assistente neemt plotseling ontslag en korte tijd later wordt ze vermoord. In 'Modus operandi' wordt een elfjarig meisje dood aangetroffen in de bossen. Een bij de politie bekende seriemoordenaar zou de dader kunnen zijn, hij was alleen niet ter plekke gesignaleerd. Tegelijkertijd wordt Lucy, het nichtje van Kay, betrapt op het stelen van geheime gegevens uit het computerbestand van de politie. In 'Het Kaïnsteken' wordt op kerstavond het levenloze lichaam van een jonge vrouw gevonden in Central Park (New York City). Kay biedt de FBI de helpende hand bij de speurtocht naar de moordenaar en naar de identiteit van de dode vrouw.

    Kay Scarpetta Thrillers
    4.0

  • Kay Scarpetta bittet zu Tisch. Aus d. Amerikan. v. Peter Beyer

    • 94 pages
    • 4 hours of reading

    In diesem Buch zeigt sich die Krimiheldin Kay Scarpetta als Gastgeberin, die zusammen mit ihrem Kollegen Pete Marino und ihrer Nichte Lucy Farinelli an Weihnachten kocht. Jeder bringt sein Spezialgericht mit, was einen neuen Blick auf die Charaktere aus Patricia Cornwells Bestsellern ermöglicht.

    Kay Scarpetta bittet zu Tisch. Aus d. Amerikan. v. Peter Beyer
    3.8