Author(s): Patricia Cornwell

Fiction

The latest instalment in the internationally acclaimed series of crime novels featuring the medical examiner, Dr Kay Scarpetta. Book Information: Florida is full of human predators, and they all give Dr Kay Scarpetta the opportunity and the means to do what she does best - persuading the dead to speak to her. And in Boston, Benton Wesley is working on a secret case involving convicted killers. It is a project which gives Scarpetta deep disquiet, as does the behaviour of her niece, Lucy, who is spending too much time in cheap bars looking for casual pick-ups. The Academy is called when a woman's body is found in Boston. She has been tortured, sexually abused, her body tattooed with handprints. The same sort of handprints Lucy had seen on the flesh of her latest pick-up. Meanwhile, Scarpetta and Marino are investigating the disappearance of a family in Florida, called in by a concerned neighbour, but as they search and find the tell-tale signs of abduction rather than disappearance, they also discover that someone had assumed the identity of the caller, and she is now dead. They've been set up, and it becomes clear that someone is tracking their every move. Author Information: Patricia Cornwell's first novel, POSTMORTEM, was published in 1990 and won five international awards. Her Scarpetta novels have since become Number One bestsellers throughout the world. She has also published three police procedurals, HORNET'S NEST, SOUTHERN CROSS and ISLE OF DOGS. Back List: Postmortem/Body of Evidence/All That Remains/Cruel and Unusua/Body Farm/From Potter's Field/Cause of Death/Unnatural Exposure/Point of Origin/Black Notice/Last Precinct/Trace Reviews: 'Cornwell still does it better than anyone else' Daily Mail 'Cornwell's books run on high octane fuel, a cocktail of adrenalin and fear. Black Notice is no exception' The Times First released October 2005.