#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,...

"Dr. Briana Ortiz's life is seriously flatlining. Her divorce is just about finalized, her brother's running out of time to find a kidney donor, and that promotion she wants? Oh, that's probably going to the new man--doctor who's already registering eighty-friggin'-seven on Briana's 'pain in my ass' scale. But just when all systems are set to hate, Dr. Jacob Maddox completely flips the game . . . by sending Briana a letter. And it's a really good...

The year is 1883, and in New York City, it's a time of dizzying splendor, crushing poverty, and tremendous change. With the gravity-defying Brooklyn Bridge nearly complete and New York in the grips of anti-vice crusader Anthony Comstock, Anna Savard and her cousin Sophie--both graduates of the Woman's Medical School--treat the city's most vulnerable, even if doing so may put everything they've strived for in jeopardy. Anna's work has placed her in...

In a rural village in December 2004 Chechnya, eight-year-old Havaa watches from the woods as Russian soldiers abduct her father in the middle of the night, accusing him of aiding Chechen rebels. Across the road their lifelong neighbor and family friend Akhmed has also been watching, fearing the worst when the soldiers set fire to Havaa's house. But when he finds her hiding in the forest with a strange blue suitcase, he makes a decision that will forever...

Astrid Bjorklund wants to use her medical training to serve God and feels that He might be leading her in the direction of missionary work. Smarting from a misunderstanding with Joshua Landsverk, the young man she thought she loved, she heads east to a missionary training school, hoping to eventually use her skills in some remote outpost in Africa. When she is called home unexpectedly to help in a family medical emergency, Astrid learns of a deadly...

Rye Mallett is a 'freight dog', a pilot who'll fly anywhere in the world, at any time, at a moment's notice, through the worst weather. As a fighter pilot in Afghanistan, he escaped death once. Figuring that it's only a matter of time before it catches up with him, he tempts it by taking risks. But one night he takes to the air, when no other pilot would, to deliver a black padlocked box. What awaits him at his destination is a near crash and a run-in...

Picking up her sixteen-year-old daughter after a party, a woman accepts responsibility for hitting a man with the car on the way home, even though her daughter had been driving, a deception that takes on a life of its own, threatening their family and the bond between mother and daughter.

"Scarpetta is back! In this twenty-fifth in the electrifying, landmark #1 bestselling thriller series chief medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta hunts an ingenious killer who has mastered cutting-edge science for the most nefarious ends"--

"From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Wish comes a poignant love story about risking everything for a dream--and whether it's possible to leave the past behind. Colby Mills once felt destined for a musical career, until tragedy grounded his aspirations. Now the head of a small family farm in North Carolina, he spontaneously takes a gig playing at a bar in St. Pete's Beach, Florida, seeking a rare break from his duties at home. But...

Kay Scarpetta and her colleague Pete Marino investigate the case of a man killed by a shotgun blast to the chest, while a woman is trapped in an abandoned house in the South after being kidnapped by an unknown captor.