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Summary
Summary
It's Dr. Kay Scarpetta's birthday, and she's about to head to Miami for a vacation with Benton Wesley, her FBI profiler husband, when she notices seven pennies on a wall behind their Cambridge house. Is this a kids' game? If so, why are all of the coins dated 1981 and so shiny they could be newly minted? Her cellphone rings, and Detective Pete Marino tells her there's been a homicide five minutes away. A high school music teacher has been shot with uncanny precision as he unloaded groceries from his car. No one has heard or seen a thing.
In this 22nd Scarpetta novel, the master forensic sleuth finds herself in the unsettling pursuit of a serial sniper who leaves no incriminating evidence except fragments of copper. The shots seem impossible, yet they are so perfect they cause instant death. The victims appear to have had nothing in common, and there is no pattern to indicate where the killer will strike next. First New Jersey, then Massachusetts, and then the murky depths off the coast of South Florida, where Scarpetta investigates a shipwreck, looking for answers that only she can discover and analyze. And it is there that she comes face to face with shocking evidence that implicates her techno genius niece, Lucy, Scarpetta's own flesh and blood.
Includes an exclusive excerpt from the riveting next novel in the Kay Scarpetta series, DEPRAVED HEART.
Author Notes
Patricia Cornwell was born in Miami, Florida on June 9, 1956. When she was nine years old, her mother tried to give her and her two brothers to evangelist Billy Graham and his wife to care for. For a while the children lived with missionaries since their mother was unable to care for them.
After graduating from Davidson College in 1979, she worked for The Charlotte Observer eventually covering the police beat and winning an investigative reporting award from the North Carolina Press Association for a series of articles on prostitution and crime in downtown Charlotte. Her award-winning biography of Ruth Bell Graham, the wife of Billy Graham, A Time for Remembering, was published in 1983. From 1984 to 1990, she worked as a technical writer and a computer analyst at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Richmond, Virginia. While working for the medical examiner, she began to write novels. Although the award-winning novel Postmortem was initially rejected by seven different publishers, once it was published in 1990 it became the only novel ever to win the Edgar, Creasey, Anthony, and Macavity awards as well as the French Prix du Roman d'Adventure, in one year.
She is the author of the Kay Scarpetta series, the Andy Brazil series, and the Winston Garano series. She has also written two cookbooks entitled Scarpetta's Winter Table and Food to Die For; a children's book entitled Life's Little Fable; and non-fiction works like Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper - Case Closed.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Bestseller Cornwell's thrilling 22nd novel featuring Dr. Kay Scarpetta (after 2013's Dust) pits the chief medical examiner against a threat uncomfortably close to home. On the eve of a Florida birthday trip with her FBI agent husband, Benton Wesley, Det. Pete Marino calls Scarpetta to the scene of a fatal shooting in Cambridge, Mass., with all the hallmarks of a sniper attack. Even worse are the alarming similarities between the victim, music teacher Jamal Nari-recently erroneously classified as a terrorist-and two shooting deaths in New Jersey. Not only is the killer an ace shot, but even handcrafts the bullets. Scarpetta knows the signature copper bullets are somehow connected to an odd discovery outside her and Wesley's home: seven shiny pennies, all from 1981. Soon the hunt is on, stretching from the tonier streets of Cambridge to the murky waters off the coast of Florida. Series fans may be pleasantly shocked by the return of a once-vanquished nemesis. Agent: Esther Newberg, ICM. (Nov.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Library Journal Review
Starred Review. In Cornwell's 22nd Kay Scarpetta thriller (after Dust), Kay and her FBI profiler husband, Benton Wesley, ready themselves to leave for a much-needed vacation. But a curious discovery on her garden rocks seven shiny pennies that date from 1981 and the flashing of a small reflective light from the distant trees put their getaway plans on hold when Det. Pete Marino calls to tell her that a long-distance sniper had targeted a music teacher, one of several victims who appear to have nothing in common. Kay is still adjusting to Marino now working for the "other" side on the police force, rather than for her as an investigator. Another unsettling fact for Kay is that her niece, Lucy, is an expert markswoman. Is someone trying to frame Lucy? The ending is unseen and unexpected and terrifying. VERDICT Deduction is the key to solving this mystery, and Scarpetta fans will relish this nail-biting novel, Cornwell's debut with publisher Morrow. [See Prepub Alert, 5/12/14; turn to p. 80 for a profile of Cornwell. Ed.] Susan Carr, Edwardsville P.L., IL (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.