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Paperback / ISBN-13: 9780751538762

Price: £9.99

ON SALE: 27th May 2010

Genre: Fiction & Related Items / Crime & Mystery

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The seventeenth book in the Kay Scarpetta series, from No. 1 bestselling author Patricia Cornwell.

‘America’s most chilling writer of crime fiction’ The Times


It is the week before Christmas. The effects of the credit crunch have prompted Dr Kay Scarpetta to offer her services pro bono to New York City’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. But in no time at all, her increased visibility seems to precipitate a string of dramatic and unsettling events. She is asked live on the air about the sensational case of Hannah Starr, who has vanished and is presumed dead. Moments later during the same broadcast, she receives a startling call-in from a former psychiatric patient of Benton Wesley’s.

When she returns after the show to the apartment where she and Benton live, she finds a suspicious package – possibly a bomb – waiting for her at the front desk. Soon the apparent threat on Scarpetta’s life finds her embroiled in a deadly plot that includes a famous actor accused of an unthinkable sex crime and the disappearance of a beautiful millionairess with whom Scarpetta’s niece Lucy seems to have shared a secret past . . .

Praise for the groundbreaking series:

‘One of the
best crime writers writing todayGuardian

Devilishly cleverSunday Times

The top gun in this fieldDaily Telegraph

Forget the pretenders. Cornwell reignsMirror

The Agatha Christie of the DNA ageExpress

What's Inside

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Reviews

The Scarpetta Factor is a novel that has clearly engaged Cornwell in the same fashion as her vintage work
INDEPENDENT
The Cornwell phenomenon goes on
Daily Mail
Brilliant . . . Cornwell digs deeper into her characters' psyches than ever before. The result is richer and more mature
EVENING STANDARD
The Scarpetta Factor is a novel that has clearly engaged Cornwell in the same fashion as her vintage work
Independent
Cornwell still does it better than anyone else
DAILY MAIL
Cornwell has never written better
Evening Standard