Body of Evidence
(Libby/OverDrive eBook, Kindle)

This second commanding thriller by the Edgar Award-winning author of Postmortem and featuring forensic sleuth Dr. Kay Scarpetta was a Mystery Guild main selection as well as a Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club alternate in cloth. $250,000 ad/promo. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Kay Scarpetta, chief medical examiner of Virginia and heroine of Postmortem , gets involved in the case of a brutal stabbing death in Richmond of romance writer Beryl Madison. Now Madison's greedy lawyer accuses Scarpetta of losing his client's latest manuscript, an autobiographical expose of Beryl's early life as protege of a legendary novelist. As more deaths occur and the killer closes in on her, Kay suffers palpitations over the sudden and devious reappearance of long-lost lover Mark but still finds time to provide forensic details. Despite its foregone conclusion, a swift-moving, thrilling, and provocative second novel. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Only a year after the successful introduction of Richmond Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta (Postmortem), Cornwell tries for the Big Book, with mostly outstanding results. Gifted writer Beryl Madison fled her home for Key West after a series of threatening phone calls. But the night she returned, she turned off her burglar alarm and opened her door to her killer. Why did she let him in? What's the significance of the odd assortment of microscopic threads (carpet fibers?) found on her body? What's the connection between her murder and that of burned-out writer Cary Harper, the former mentor whose house she's lived in for so many years, and what did his sister Sterling Harper burn in her fireplace the night she died? And how has self-professed clairvoyant Al Hunt been able to make such accurate predictions about the case? These riddles would keep Kay Scarpetta busy even if she didn't have to deal with former lover Mark James, who arrives from Chicago to pump her about the case on behalf of unsavory lawyer Robert Sparacino and then vanishes without a trace (his firm in Chicago says they've never heard of him), leaving Kay to face Sparacino's accusations that her office lost or stole Beryl Madison's last manuscript. Kay's given improbably plenipotentiary powers, and she needs them all to track down the connections between Sparacino's scams, the Harper family secrets, and the hospital where Al Hunt was abused as a child. As nerve-wracking as Postmortem, but much more intricate and wide-ranging: a giant step forward for Cornwell. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Kay Scarpetta, chief medical examiner of Virginia and heroine of Postmortem , gets involved in the case of a brutal stabbing death in Richmond of romance writer Beryl Madison. Now Madison's greedy lawyer accuses Scarpetta of losing his client's latest manuscript, an autobiographical expose of Beryl's early life as protege of a legendary novelist. As more deaths occur and the killer closes in on her, Kay suffers palpitations over the sudden and devious reappearance of long-lost lover Mark but still finds time to provide forensic details. Despite its foregone conclusion, a swift-moving, thrilling, and provocative second novel. Copyright 1991 Cahners Business Information.

Dr. Kay Scarpetta, the spunky and thoughtful chief medical examiner introduced in Cornwell's first novel, Postmortem , makes her second commanding appearance here. Beryl Madison, a writer of historical romances, is grotesquely slashed to death in her Richmond, Va., home after returning from Key West, where she had fled, terrified by threats to her life. Why Madison let the killer into her home is Scarpetta's first question; pursuing its answer involves her in the murder of another writer, reclusive Cary Harper, who was Madison's jealous mentor; the suicide of Harper's sister; the FBI investigation of Madison's crooked lawyer; and, along with bewildering threats to her own life, plenty of complex, satisfying forensic sleuthing. Finding clues under a microscope, in the records of a psychiatric hospital, at a Key West restaurant and in a terrorist skyjacking, Scarpetta follows a trail of evidence--clues that would lead nowhere without her intelligence, compassion and imagination--to a powerful conclusion. Cornwell handles her heroine's interactions with the local police and a former lover with authority to equal her technological expertise. Mystery Guild main selection; Literary Guild alternate. (Feb.) Copyright 1990 Cahners Business Information.