"Chief medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta finds herself in a Northern Virginia wilderness examining the remains of two campers wanted by federal law enforcement. The victims have been savaged beyond recognition, and other evidence is terrifying and baffling, including a larger-than-life footprint. After one of the most frightening body retrievals of her career, Scarpetta must discover who would commit murders this savage, and why."--

The discovery of the skeleton of a woman murdered two centuries earlier sends a medical examiner on the trail of a long-dead serial killer who terrorized Boston with crimes in which a Harvard Medical School student had become the prime suspect.

"#1 New York Times bestselling author Patricia Cornwell returns with the remarkable twenty-fourth thriller in her popular high-stakes series starring medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta. In the quiet of twilight, on an early autumn day, twenty-six-year-old Elisa Vandersteel is killed while riding her bicycle along the Charles River. It appears she was struck by lightning -- except the weather is perfectly clear with not a cloud in sight. Dr. Kay Scarpetta,...

Gin Sullivan is back in her small hometown of Trumbull, Pennsylvania on an extended leave from her job at the Chicago medical examiner's office and rekindling an old flame with her high school sweetheart, Jake. Gin is readjusting to life at home when Jake receives harrowing news early one morning. The new housing development his construction firm is building has caught fire and underneath one of the burnt homes is a dead body.

In Norfolk, Virginia, a reporter is killed while scuba diving in the naval yard. As she investigates, chief medical examiner Kay Scarpetta uncovers a plot by a fascist militia to take over an atomic power plant.

Boston homicide detective Jane Rizzoli receives the grim news that Maura's charred body has been found in a mountain ravine. Shocked and grieving, Jane is determined to learn what happened to her friend. The investigation plunges Jane into the twisted history of Kingdom Come, Wyoming, where a gruesome discovery lies buried beneath the snow.

Leaving behind her Charleston forensic pathology practice to accept an assignment in New York City, Kay Scarpetta learns the story of an injured psychiatric patient who claims he was attacked by a stalker who was killing someone else at the time.