From Potter's Field (Kay Scarpetta Series #6)

by Patricia Cornwell

Overview

#1 bestselling author Patricia Cornwell returns to the chilling world of gutsy medical examiner Kay Scarpetta in this classic forensic thriller.

An unidentified nude female sits propped against a fountain in Central Park. There are no signs of struggle. When Dr. Kay Scarpetta and her colleagues Benton Wesley and Pete Marino arrive on the scene, they instantly recognize the signature of serial killer Temple Brooks Gault. Scarpetta, on assignment with the FBI, visits the New York City morgue on Christmas morning, where she must use her forensic expertise to give a name to the nameless—a difficult task. But as she sorts through conflicting forensic clues, Gault claims his next victim. He has infiltrated the FBI’s top secret artificial-intelligence system developed by Scarpetta’s niece, and sends taunting messages as his butchery continues, moving terrifyingly closer to Scarpetta herself.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781439104798
Publisher:	Scribner
Publication date:	08/02/1995
Series:	Kay Scarpetta Series , #6
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	416
Sales rank:	18,525
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 Creasey, the Anthony, the Macavity, and the Prix du Roman d’Aventure. Beyond the Scarpetta series, Cornwell 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, NC, and now lives and works in Boston. Find out more at PatriciaCornwell.com, at Facebook.com/Patricia.Cornwell, on Twitter: @1pcornwell, and on Instagram: @1pcornwell.

 

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

Table of Contents

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Perhaps the best entry in the Scarpetta series yet."—New York Daily News

"Cornwell's galloping plot lines, technical expertise, and strong sense of atmosphere keep matters zinging along."—San Francisco Chronicle

Editorial Reviews

Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta plays a tense cat-and-mouse game with a serial killer, an old enemy, in her sixth outing (following The Body Farm), and he has her badly rattled. The story begins as a rotten Christmas for Scarpetta: Temple Gault has struck again, leaving a naked, apparently homeless girl shot in Central Park on Christmas Eve; Scarpetta, as the FBI's consulting pathologist, is called in. Later, a transit cop is found shot in a subway tunnel, and, back home in Richmond, Va., the body of a crooked local sheriff is delivered to Scarpetta's own morgue by the elusive, brilliant Gault. The normally unflappable Scarpetta finds herself hyperventilating and nearly shooting her own niece. In the end, some ingenious forensic detective work and a visit to the killer's agonized family set up a high-tech climax back in the New York subway, which Gault treats as the Phantom of the Opera did the sewers of Paris. There's something faintly unconvincing about Gault (in a competitive field, it's tough to create a really horrific serial killer), and Scarpetta, stuck with her own family troubles and involved in a rather glum affair with a colleague, seems to be running low on energy. Still, this is a compelling, fast-moving tale, written in a highly compressed style, and only readers who know that Cornwell can do better are likely to complain. Literary Guild, Doubleday Book Club and Mystery Guild selections. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Cornwell's Dr. Kay Scarpetta is fast becoming everyone's favorite forensic specialist; her latest outing, The Body Farm (LJ 9/1/94), was #2 on the New York Times Best Sellers list. This time, Scarpetta must contend with a serial killer who has breached the FBI's top secret artificial intelligence system.

Library Journal

Reading Cornwell's latest is like riding one of those amusement-park roller coasters. The rider gets on, and the car starts slowly up the first big hill, momentarily hesitating at the top before plunging down, down, and around, leaving the rider gasping and breathless, with trembling limbs and a palpitating heart, exhilarated but shaken, even after the ride is over. Cornwell lulls the reader with a slow start, then builds relentlessly to a heart-stopping climax 400 hundred pages later. Virginia medical examiner Kay Scarpetta once again faces her psychopathic nemesis, Temple Gault, the horrifying, seemingly invincible serial killer. Gault has struck again, this time brutally murdering a young homeless woman in New York's Central Park on Christmas Eve. Gault's also broken into CAIN, the know-all, see-all FBI computer system that Scarpetta's niece, Lucy, has created. And in his uncanny way, Gault has entered Scarpetta's mind, anticipating her every thought and move as he goes about his own drug-induced, psychotic killing games. It takes all Scarpetta's steely courage and mental superiority to stay a step ahead of Gault, to try to stop him before he kills again. From Richmond to New York, Scarpetta, her friend Captain Pete Marino, and her niece Lucy stay hot on Gault's trail, and finally, in a terrifying, knuckle-whitening, breathtaking climax, they trap him deep in the bowels of New York's subway system. Once again, Cornwell proves herself one of today's most talented crime fiction writers, an author who keeps her readers on the edges of their seats with magnificent plotting, masterful writing, and marvelous suspense. This is certain to be one of the most popular thrillers of the year.

Emily Melton

"Perhaps the best entry in the Scarpetta series yet."—New York Daily News

"Cornwell's galloping plot lines, technical expertise, and strong sense of atmosphere keep matters zinging along."—San Francisco Chronicle

From the Publisher

Another Christmas Eve is disrupted for Medical Examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta when she’s called to the murder scene of an unidentified female whose naked body is found in New York’s Central Park. It soon becomes apparent that the murderer may be as focused on the forensic specialist as she is on him and that the violent chain of events may lead to Scarpetta herself becoming his ultimate victim. This compelling story is a perfect match for C.J. Critt, whose unpretentious delivery captures the heart and personality of Scarpetta as she struggles to match wits with her nemesis, an evil serial killer who simply must be stopped. F.J.F. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine

FEB/MAR 04 - AudioFile