Chaos (Kay Scarpetta Series #24)

by Patricia Cornwell

Overview

“When it comes to the forensic sciences, nobody can touch Cornwell.”

—New York Times Book Review

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CHAOS

From the Ancient Greek (χάος or kháos)

A vast chasm or void. Anarchy. The science of unpredictability.

On a late summer evening in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Dr. Kay Scarpetta and her investigative partner, Pete Marino, respond to a call about a dead bicyclist near the Kennedy School of Government. It appears that a young woman has been attacked with almost superhuman force.

Even before Scarpetta’s headquarters has been officially notified about the case, Marino and Scarpetta’s FBI agent husband, Benton Wesley, receive suspicious calls, allegedly from someone at Interpol. But it makes no sense. Why would the elite international police agency know about the case or be interested? It soon becomes apparent that an onslaught of harassment might be the work of an anonymous cyberbully named Tailend Charlie, who has been sending cryptic communications to Scarpetta for over a week.

Even Lucy, her brilliant tech-savvy niece, can’t trace who it is or how this person could have access to intimate information. When a second death shocks Scarpetta to her core, it becomes apparent she and those close to her are confronted with something far bigger and more dangerous than they’d ever imagined.

 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062436726
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	11/15/2016
Series:	Kay Scarpetta Series , #24
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	NOOK Book
Pages:	480
Sales rank:	5,656
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Patricia Cornwell is recognized as one of the world’s top bestselling crime authors with novels translated into thirty-six languages in more than 120 countries. Her novels have won numerous prestigious awards including the Edgar, the John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger, the Anthony, the Macavity and the Prix du Roman d’Aventures. Beyond the Scarpetta series, Patricia has written a definitive book about Jack the Ripper, a biography and two more fiction series among others. Cornwell, a licensed helicopter pilot and scuba diver, actively researches the cutting-edge forensic technologies that inform her work. She was born in Miami, grew up in Montreat, North Carolina, and now lives and works in Boston.

Hometown:

Boston, MA and New York, NY

Date of Birth:

June 9, 1956

Place of Birth:

Miami, Florida

Education:

B.A. in English, Davidson College, 1979; King College

Website:

http://www.patriciacornwell.com

Editorial Reviews

09/26/2016
In bestseller Cornwell’s uneven 24th Kay Scarpetta novel (after 2015’s Depraved Heart), the forensic pathologist investigates the bizarre death of 23-year-old Brit Elisa Vandersteelis, who was riding her bicycle in a Cambridge, Mass., park when she suffered a fatal electrical burn that looks like a lightning strike but isn’t. Meanwhile, Scarpetta’s FBI agent husband, Benton Wesley, is called away on matters of national security, which turn out to involve the sudden death of Gen. John Briggs, a long-time friend of Scarpetta’s and one of the backers of her Cambridge Forensic Center. Electricity seemed to play a role in his death, too, making Scarpetta believe there’s a connection. Of course, whenever there’s a series of suspicious deaths, the specter of Carrie Grethen, Scarpetta’s nemesis, isn’t far from her thoughts. Coupled with threats she’s been receiving from the mysterious Tailend Charlie, these new deaths appear to fit Carrie’s MO. Lots of cutting-edge forensic detail and some revelatory character moments help compensate for a plot with only occasional flashes of narrative energy. Agent: Esther Newberg, ICM. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

Thrilling…. Readers new to Cornwell will find themselves involved from the very first page, as will the veterans. CHAOS is one book you should not miss.

Bookreporter.com on Chaos

Patricia Cornwell has created characters with real emotions and life experiences, and she provides them with more than enough danger to make things interesting. Dr. Scarpetta has become a good friend.

MysteryPlayground.net on Chaos

[An] absorbing thriller.

Blackfive.net on Chaos

There is a quiet intensity to Ms. Cornwell’s writing that compels you to read, then the eeriness sets in. . . . With CHAOS, once again Patricia Cornwell mesmerizes with her astounding scientific knowledge, her keen ear for dialogue and the human psyche, all woven together flawlessly.

FreshFiction.com on Chaos

While Scarpetta’s character has flaws, she is still a powerful female protagonist and she offers the reader an amazing calculating approach to investigation. I am always amazed at the passion that she has for her position. . . . A fast engaging read.

Dad of Divas Reviews on Chaos

Praise for Chaos: “Thrilling…. Readers new to Cornwell will find themselves involved from the very first page, as will the veterans. Chaos is one book you should not miss.

Bookreporter.com

06/15/2016
Odd that 26-year-old Elisa Vandersteel seems to have been killed by lightening while riding her bike along the Charles River one starlit night. Soon thereafter, medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta starts receiving creepy poems about the case from an anonymous cyberbully, and the media go berserk when lab results confirm Scarpetta's implausible lightning hypothesis. With a million-copy first printing.

Library Journal

2016-10-05
Dr. Kay Scarpetta’s talk to the bigwigs at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government is delayed by murder, malicious online posts, anonymous messages, a visit from her sister, and a familiar malefactor from her past in this kitchen-sink 24th installment.Walking through Harvard Yard in the brutal September heat, Scarpetta muses that normal days for a forensic pathologist are shockingly abnormal for everyone else. As if to prove her point, she instantly gets word from her old frenemy Cambridge Police Investigator Pete Marino that a call to 911 complained that she’d just quarreled violently with Bryce Clark, her chief of staff. Scarpetta, already pondering a series of obscure but meticulously timed messages she’s had from someone calling himself Tailend Charlie, is in no mood for the impending visit from her disapproving younger sister, Dorothy, whose flight to Boston keeps getting delayed. So it’s a perfect time for Anya and Enya Rummage, a pair of dull-witted teenage twins, to report finding a body in John F. Kennedy Park. Arriving at the crime scene, Scarpetta realizes with a shock that she encountered Elisa Vandersteel in passing only a few hours before her death. Is her old nemesis, that monstrous psychopath Carrie Grethen, trying to get at her yet again (Depraved Heart, 2015, etc.) by killing a stranger who crossed her path? And just how was the Canadian-born Elisa, who’d been working as an au pair in tech CEO William Portison’s Mayfair home, killed? Even the twins noticed a burning smell coming from the body, but there’s no meteorological sign of the lightning strike that would seem to be the most obvious cause for her death. Fans, aware that this particular fatality is incidental to the larger saga of the heroine’s epic struggle with the forces of evil, will forgive the absence of a coherent mystery or characters worth caring about. The closest analogue to Cornwell’s wildly successful series, in fact, may be a superhero franchise.

Kirkus Reviews

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