Cause of Death

Patricia Cornwall has shined again, with her seventh novel of Dr. Kay Scarpetta, solving another great mystery. From the first chapter, the reader is enticed with a juicy murder, some creepy characters, betrayal, and corruption of the most high. It's a must-read!.........Covering for a doctor in a small fishing village, known as Chesapeake, chief medical examiner, Dr. Kay Scarpetta, is awakened by a strange phone call. Refusing to give a name, the caller tells her that there has been a homicide, at the Inactive Naval Ship Yard, and she is needed at the crime scene immediately. Approaching all obstacles from the military, Kay still had jurisdiction, and she was not leaving without a body. Putting on a diving suit, plus ignoring all insults from the men in question, Kay went down into the water to retrieve the victim. To her surprise, however, she wasn't prepared in what she was seeing, as she looked into the dead eyes of Ted Eddings. Infamous as an investigative reporter, Kay not only liked the man, but she had the highest respect for him as well. So, why was Ted in a diving suit, snagged on an old sub, in a military ship yard? As the body was brought back to the morgue, she was joined by her old friend, homicide detective, Pete Marino, and he too was suspicious of Eddings death, especially after Kay told him, he died of cyanide poisoning. When threats are made by the military, including a seedy detective, Kay decides to return to her home in Virginia, where she and Marino can continue their investigation. At Ted's apartment though, more mysteries start to surface, when they discover armour-piercing bullets, commonly known as “cop killers”, bullets only law enforcement would have, including the military. What was Ted Eddings into? Was it a story? Or something worse? When someone close to Kay is violently murdered, while driving her car, they do the only thing they can do. They call profiler, SS FBI agent, Benton Wesley. As acting consultants themselves for the FBI, Marino, Kay, and Benton, are once again reunited as a team but before they probe any deeper, Kay is shocked by revelations she has unraveled on her own but before she can tell anyone, all the clues slowly start to surface, scaring her into oblivion. A crazy egotistical holy man, a creepy bible, uranium, cyanide, the military, a “cop killer” encased into a man's brain, betrayal, corruption, and an evil killer that will stop at nothing until he gets to his prey. Can Kay get to Wesley and Marino in time, before thousands die? She has to try, there's no turning back, not now. Three things she's positive about. Who to stop, who to warn with her gaze, and who's arms to run into. Now, only to get there in time, before the clock runs out. It's now or never!........great thriller by Miss Cornwall...I loved it!....