Part of Kay Scarpetta, book 14
First published 2006
Kay Scarpetta has left her previous position to work with the National Forensic Academy in Florida. She faces her strangest case yet, one that produces physical evidence unlike anything in her experience. The investigation reveals disturbing links between multiple brutal crimes and their potential perpetrators. Scarpetta works alongside her trusted team: detective Pete Marino, profiler Benton Wesley, and her tech-savvy niece Lucy. A imprisoned psychopath at a Harvard-affiliated psychiatric facility offers Scarpetta information that might help solve the case. His tips could be genuine insights or deliberate misdirection. The evidence suggests more than one killer operates freely. Scarpetta must determine whether these crimes connect to each other or represent separate threats. The psychiatric study of the confined killer's brain might reveal how another psychopath thinks and acts. Scarpetta races to understand the criminal mind before more victims fall.
Genres: suspense, mystery, crime, psychological-thriller
Vibes: dark, emotional, fast-paced, suspenseful
Tropes: cat-and-mouse, deception, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Florida, Harvard
Period: Contemporary
453 pages · Mass Market Paperback · Berkley
Content warnings: graphic-violence, murder