Trace: A Scarpetta Novel

Trace: A Scarpetta Novel

• Trace: A Scarpetta Novel
• Putnam Adult
• Patricia Cornwell

The heart-stopping new Dr. Kay Scarpetta thriller from America's #1-bestselling crime writer. <br><br> Dr. Kay Scarpetta, now freelancing from south Florida, returns to the city that turned its back on her five years ago. <br><br> In <i>Trace</i>, 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, whom Marino dislikes instantly, meddles with the case. <br><br> Deprived of assistance from colleagues Benton and Lucy, who are embroiled in what first appears to be an unrelated attempted rape by a stalker, Scarpetta is faced with investigating the death of a fourteen-year-old girl, working with the smallest pieces of evidence-traces that only the most thorough hunters can identify. She must follow the twisting leads and track the strange details in order to make the dead speak-and to reveal the sad truth that may be more than even she can bear.