Scarpetta (abridged)

A serial killer is on the loose in Richmond, Virginia. Three women have died, brutalised and strangled in their own bedrooms. There is no pattern: the killer appears to strike at random, but always early on Saturday mornings.

Someone is stalking Beryl Madison. Someone who spies on her and makes threatening, obscene phone-calls. Terrified, Beryl flees to Key West, but eventually she must return to her Richmond home. The very night she arrives, Beryl inexplicably invites her killer in.

When the bodies of young courting couples start turning up in remote woodland areas, Dr Kay Scarpetta's task as chief medical examiner is made more difficult by the effects of the elements. Eight times she must write that the cause of death is undetermined. But when the latest girl to go missing turns out to be the daughter of one of the most powerful women in America, Kay finds herself prey to political pressure. As she starts to investigate, she finds that vital evidence is being withheld.

When convicted killer Ronnie Joe Waddell is executed in Virginia's electric chair, he becomes what should be a routine case for Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta. But after Waddell's execution, everyone connected to him begins to die - including a member of Scarpetta's staff. When crucial records disappear from her files, Scarpetta comes under fire for incomeptence. Caught in a web of political intrigue, she must fight to free herself from murderous insinuations and threats to her own life.

Carrie Grethen, partner in crime to William Temple Gault, has escaped from prison. Before she does so, she sends Kay Scarpetta a message that makes it all too clear she blames her for Gault's death, and has specific, if cryptic, plans for revenge. Wary and quite shaken, Scarpetta still has to get on with an investigation into the death of an unknown female in a fire that has destroyed the isolated farmhouse home of her erstwhile political boss.

Physically and psychologically bruised by her encounter with the killer Chandonne, Dr Kay Scarpetta has to leave her home in the hands of the police team investigating the attack. She finds shelter with an old friend, Anna Zenner, but it is not the haven of security she needs when she discovers that Anna has been sub- poenaed to appear before a Grand Jury which is investigating Scarpetta for murder.

Since Postmortem garnered critical acclaim and a record-breaking five awards for a first crime novel, the Scarpetta novels have often been imitated, but never bettered. Against her own judgement and the advice of Benton Wesley and her niece, Lucy, Scarpetta agrees to return to Virginia as a consultant pathologist on a case involving the death of a 14-year-old girl.

In Trace, Kay Scarpetta travels to Richmond, Virginia, at the odd behest of the recently appointed Chief Medical Examiner, who claims that he needs her help to solve a perplexing crime. When she arrives, however, Scarpetta finds that nothing is as she expected: her former lab is in the final stages of demolition; the inept chief isn't the one who requested her after all; her old assistant chief has developed personal problems that he won't reveal; and a glamorous FBI agent meddles with the case.

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.

Fresh from her battle with a psychopath in Florida, Scarpetta decides it's time for a change of pace. Moving to Charleston, South Carolina, she opens a unique private forensic pathology practice, offering expert crime scene investigation and autopsies to communities lacking access to modern technology. It seems like an ideal situation, until the murders and violent deaths begin.

Fresh from her bruising battle with a psychopath in Florida, Scarpetta decides it's time for a change of pace. Moving to Charleston, South Carolina, she opens a unique private forensic pathology practice, one in which she and her colleagues, including Pete Marino and her niece, Lucy, offer expert crime-scene investigation and autopsy services to communities lacking local access to competent death investigation and modern technology.

Leaving behind her private forensic pathology practice in Charleston, South Carolina, Kay Scarpetta accepts an assignment in New York City, where the NYPD has asked her to examine an injured man on Bellevue Hospital's psychiatric prison ward. The handcuffed and chained patient, Oscar Bane, has specifically asked for her, and when she literally has her gloved hands on him, he begins to talk - and the story he has to tell turns out to be one of the most bizarre she has ever heard.

Leaving behind her forensic pathology practice in South Carolina, Kay Scarpetta takes up an assignment in New York City, where the NYPD has asked her to examine an injured patient in a psychiatric ward. The handcuffed and chained patient, Oscar Bane, has specifically asked for her, and when she literally has her gloved hands on him, he begins to talk - and the story he has to tell turns out to be one of the most bizarre she has ever heard.

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 air about the sensational case of Hannah Starr, who has vanished and is presumed dead.