Body of evidence

After months of menacing phone calls and feeling that her every move is being watched, successful writer Beryl Madison flees Key West when a terrifying message is scratched on her car. But the very night she returns to Richmond, she deactivates her burglar alarm and opens her door to someone who nearly decapitates her. Why did she let him in, wonders Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta? And why is Beryl's latest manuscript missing? Pursuing the answers involves Scarpetta in the murder of another writer -- Beryl's jealous mentor. While she copes with a variety of personal and professional problems, Scarpetta's high-tech forensic skills enable her to collect a body of evidence -- clues that would mean little without her intelligence, compassion, and imagination -- that leads her directly into a nightmare all her own.

Postmortem

Four women with nothing in common, united only in death. Four brutalized victims of a brilliant monster -- a "Mr. Nobody," moving undetected through a paralyzed city, leaving behind a gruesome trail of carnage...but few clues. With skilled hands, an unerring eye, and the latest advances in forensic research, an unrelenting female medical examiner -- Kay Scarpetta -- is determined to unmask a maniac. But someone is trying to sabotage Kay's investigation from the inside. And worse yet, someone wants her dead...

Patricia Cornwell is recognized as one of the world's top bestselling crime authors with novels translated into thirty-six languages in more than 120 countries. Her novels have won numerous prestigious awards including the Edgar, the Creasey, the Anthony, the Macavity, and the Prix du Roman d'Aventure. Beyond the Scarpetta series, Patricia has written a definitive book about Jack the Ripper, a biography, and three more fiction series among others. Cornwell, a licensed helicopter pilot and scuba diver, actively researches the forensic technologies that inform her work. She was born in Miami, grew up in Montreat, North Carolina, and now lives and works in Boston.