The Bone Bed: Scarpetta (Book 20)

Cornwell, Patricia

3.74

25,189 ratings by Goodreads

9781611763560: The Bone Bed: Scarpetta (Book 20)

ISBN 10: 1611763568 ISBN 13: 9781611763560

Publisher: Penguin Audio, 2014

A woman has vanished while digging a dinosaur bone bed in the remote wilderness of Canada. Somehow, the only evidence has made its way to the inbox of Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta, over two thousand miles away in Boston. She has no idea why. But as events unfold with alarming speed, Scarpetta begins to suspect that the paleontologist’s disappearance is connected to a series of crimes much closer to home: a gruesome murder, inexplicable tortures, and trace evidence from the last living creatures of the dinosaur age.

When she turns to those around her, Scarpetta finds that the danger and suspicion have penetrated even her closest circles. Her niece Lucy speaks in riddles. Her lead investigator, Pete Marino, and FBI forensic psychologist and husband, Benton Wesley, have secrets of their own. Feeling alone and betrayed, Scarpetta is tempted by someone from her past as she tracks a killer both cunning and cruel.

This is Kay Scarpetta as you have never seen her before. The Bone Bed is a must read for any fan of this series, or an ideal starting point for new readers.

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About the Author:

PATRICIA CORNWELL’s most recent bestsellers include Red Mist, Port Mortuary, and Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper—Case Closed. Her earlier works include Postmortem—the only novel to win five major crime awards in a single year—and Cruel and Unusual, which won Britain’s prestigious Gold Dagger Award for the best crime
novel of 1993. Dr. Kay Scarpetta herself won the 1999 Sherlock Award for the best detective created by an American author.

From Booklist:

On the same day she receives a mystifying video e-mail about an American anthropologist missing in Canada, Kay Scarpetta retrieves a woman’s body from Massachusetts Bay (after disentangling it from a massive sea turtle) and testifies at the trial of a billionaire industrialist accused of murdering his missing wife. Disparate cases tend to connect in crime fiction, and soon Scarpetta—with her chief investigator, Pete Marino, temporarily sidelined—is searching for what her husband, FBI profiler Benton Wesley, believes to be a serial killer. Unfortunately, one of the cases doesn’t quite fit the pattern. And then there’s Scarpetta herself, now feeling both her age and some friction in her marriage. She’s gazing appreciatively at younger men, including her newly hired deputy at the Cambridge Forensic Center, Dr. Luke Zenner, while Wesley admits that his younger female partner is in love with him and has tried to lure him to bed. Which distracts Scarpetta when the killer, inevitably, targets her. Cornwell’s forensics are fine, but she still seems to be struggling to recover the freshness and verve that formerly distinguished the Scarpetta series. Longtime fans may not be bothered, but others may find reading this more a duty than a pleasure. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: As the twentieth entry in the Kay Scarpetta series, this is bound to be promoted heavily. Shortcomings aside, it extends the personal stories of a handful of characters whom fans have followed for years. --Michele Leber

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