Present day: Julia Hamill has made a horrifying discovery on the grounds of her new home in rural Massachusetts: a skull buried in the rocky soil--human, female, and, according to the trained eye of Boston medical examiner Maura Isles, scarred with the unmistakable marks of murder. Boston, 1830: In order to pay for his education, medical student Norris Marshall has joined the ranks of local "resurrectionists"--those who plunder graveyards and harvest...

"#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,...

The "book of the dead" is the morgue log, the ledger in which all cases are entered by hand. For Kay Scarpetta, however, it is about to have a new meaning. Fresh from her bruising battle with a psychopath in Florida, Scarpetta decides it's time for a change of pace--not only personally and professionally, but geographically. Moving to the historic city of Charleston, South Carolina, she opens a unique private forensic pathology practice, one in which...

Forensic pathologist Kay Scarpetta has come almost full circle, returning to Virginia as the chief medical examiner, the state where she launched her storied career. Finding herself the new girl in town once again after being away for many years, she's inherited not only an overbearing secretary, but also a legacy of neglect and potential corruption. She and her husband Benton Wesley, now a forensic psychologist with the U.S. Secret Service, have...

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.

When a perfectly preserved "mummy" is discovered in the dusty basement of Boston's Crispin Museum and an archaeologist turns up missing, medical examiner Maura Isles and Boston homicide detective Jane Rizzoli have precious little time to derail the Archaeology Killer before he adds another chilling piece to his monstrous collection.

After two women are killed, medical examiner Maura Isles and homicide detective Jane Rizzoli uncover an ancient horror in a cloistered convent that leads them toward a dawning revelation about the killer's identity -- one that's too shattering to consider.

When Scarpetta examines a young man's body, she discovers stunning indications that he may have been alive when he was zipped inside a pouch and locked inside the cooler of her new Cambridge Forensic Center in Massachusetts. Various 3-D radiology scans reveal more shocking details about internal injuries unlike any Scarpetta has ever seen. These suggest the possibility of a conspiracy to cause mass casualties, and she races against time to discover...

The Moores are missing with Loren D. Estleman: The Moore family just vanished from their home without telling a soul. A last-minute vacation? A kidnapping? A run for their lives? You'll never see the truth coming. The Housewife with Sam Hawken: Maggie Denning is a former chief detective adjusting to a quiet life in the suburbs with her family. But when the woman next door is found brutally murdered, Maggie starts investigating- and everyone's...

"Don Donaldson brings us to the famous French Quarter with our favorite dynamic detective duo in this gripping thriller. New Orleans's chief medical examiner Andy Broussard and his assistant, criminal psychologist Kit Franklyn, set off to investigate a series of violent serial murders. Examinations of the victims have led them to discover that each one's throat had been ripped out with two tools: a garden fork and something unrecognizable. Something...