Depraved Heart: A Scarpetta Novel - Paperback

by Patricia Cornwell (Author)

#1 New York Times bestselling author Patricia
Cornwell's 23^rd Scarpetta novel is a "heart-stopping,
paranoia-fueled, propulsively readable, viscerally suspenseful, disconcertingly
shifty"* thriller in which Kay must save her niece from a diabolical set-up.

*Providence Journal

Dr. Kay Scarpetta is working a suspicious death scene in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, when an emergency alert sounds on her phone. A video
link lands in her text messages and seems to be from her computer genius niece,
Lucy. But how can it be? It's clearly a surveillance film of Lucy taken almost
twenty years ago.

As Scarpetta watches she begins to learn frightening secrets
about her niece, whom she has loved and raised like a daughter. That film clip
and then others sent soon after raise dangerous legal implications that
increasingly isolate Scarpetta and leave her not knowing where to turn. She can't
tell her FBI husband, Benton Wesley, or her investigative partner, Pete Marino.
Not even Lucy.

Soon Scarpetta is launched on an intensely psychological
odyssey that includes the mysterious death of a Hollywood mogul's daughter,
aircraft wreckage on the bottom of the sea in the Bermuda Triangle, a grisly
gift left in the back of a crime scene truck, and more videos from the past
that threaten to destroy her entire world and everyone she loves. And when the
FBI raid Lucy's estate and begin building a case that could send her to prison
for the rest of her life, there's only one person who can save her...

Back Jacket

Dr. Kay Scarpetta is working a highly suspicious death scene in Cambridge, Massachusetts, when an emergency alert sounds on her phone. A video link seems to be from her niece Lucy. But how can it be? It's clearly a surveillance film of Lucy taken almost twenty years ago.

As Scarpetta watches she comes to grips with frightening secrets about her niece. That first clip and others sent soon after raise dangerous implications that increasingly isolate Scarpetta and leave her confused, alarmed, and not knowing where to turn. The diabolical presence and singularly "depraved heart" behind what unfolds seems obvious--but strangely, not to the FBI. Certainly that's the message they send when they start harassing Lucy and begin building a case that could send her to prison for the rest of her life.

In the latest novel in her bestselling series featuring medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta, Cornwell captivates readers again with the jolting twists, high-wire tension, and cutting-edge forensic detail for which she is renowned, proving yet again why she is the world's number one bestselling crime writer.