After a five-year hiatus, Cornwell (
Chaos) returns with the 25th Kay Scarpetta thriller. With a sophisticated narrative, an outstanding company of characters, a horrific crime, and a surprising ending she proves you can go home again. When Dr. Kay Scarpetta and her Secret Service husband Benton are appointed to the president’s Doomsday Commission, she also chooses to return to her previous position as chief medical examiner of Virginia. But she is soon second-guessing that decision while investigating the gruesome murder of a female biomedical engineer. Her predecessor’s incompetence keeps handicapping her work; adding to her troubles, she and Benton are summoned urgently to a White House Doomsday meeting about a disastrous space incident that is somehow connected to the murdered engineer.
VERDICT Scarpetta is brilliant, compassionate and humble, excelling in her profession and in diplomacy while trying to solve a heinous crime during a pandemic, dealing with combative coworkers, on call for the president and navigating a post–January 6 militarized DC. Longtime fans will cheer Scarpetta’s return in this timely tale; although all events are novel-specific, the series is best read in order.
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