A traveling businessman is snatched off of an Upper East Side street in broad daylight; or so it appears to the eight year old girl who is the crime's only witness. The perp leaves a token at the site of the kidnapping; a miniature noose. A crime scene this puzzling demands forensic expertise of the highest order. Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs are called in to investigate. Rhyme and Sachs' investigation takes an unexpected turn when a similar kidnapping...

"Carrie Stuart Parks' expertise and talent shines in her latest novel featuring forensic artist Gwen Marcey"--

Crime drama from the perspective of a Las Vegas forensic team.

Crime drama from the perspective of a Las Vegas forensic team.

In the quiet of twilight, on an early autumn day, twenty-six-year-old Elisa Vandersteel is killed while riding her bicycle along the Charles River. It appears she was struck by lightning - except the weather is perfectly clear with not a cloud in sight. Dr. Kay Scarpetta, the Cambridge Forensic Center's director and chief, decides at the scene that this is no accidental Act of God.

It's Dr. Kay Scarpetta's birthday, and she's about to head to Miami for a vacation with Benton Wesley, her FBI profiler husband, when she notices seven pennies on a wall behind their Cambridge house. Is this a kids' game? If so, why are all of the coins dated 1981 and so shiny they could be newly minted? Her cellphone rings, and Detective Pete Marino tells her there's been a homicide five minutes away. A high school music teacher has been shot with...

Returning home from a trip to Paris, Boston medical examiner Maura Isles confronts a nightmarish scene. Police cruisers line her street and slumped in a car at the end of Maura's driveway is a dead woman, her head bloodied by a gunshot wound. Cops and neighbors gape at her as she approaches. Only when Maura looks at the victim does she understand why everyone is so shocked by her arrival. The dead woman looks exactly like Maura. Within a week, the...

Forensic pathologist Janis Amatuzio has performed thousands of autopsies. She chose her line of work in part because it allowed her to help unravel the mystery of each person's death. She found that by listening and talking to the loved ones of the deceased, she could offer them some sense of closure. In the course of her work, she has heard extraordinary stories from grieving loved ones, patients near death, police officers, clergy members, and colleagues...

When a New York City construction crane mysteriously collapses, causing mass destruction and killing several people, Rhyme and Amelia Sachs are on the case. A political group claims to be behind the sabotage and threatens another crane collapse in twenty-four hours, unless their demands are met. The clock is ticking. With New York in a panic, the stakes are higher than ever for Rhyme and his team to unravel the plot before the timer runs out and more...

"Forensic pathologist Grace Reilly has seen her share of unusual deaths in rural Missouri. But when she begins to notice a curious pattern in autopsies of older residents whose demises appear to be natural, she takes her concerns to Sheriff Nate Cox. Nate is skeptical about the link Grace is seeing between the deaths, as well as her suspicions of foul play. But her persistence is compelling. And once they join forces to investigate, danger follows...