The Last Precinct (A Scarpetta Novel) [Paperback]

What is peculiarly impressive about Patricia Cornwell's new addition to her popular series about the pathologist Kay Scarpetta, The Last Precinct, is that it is a book in which everything is up for grabs and all is at stake. Murders we thought settled for good in previous books, with guilt allocated and people arrested or killed, suddenly come bubbling to the surface again. Kay finds herself accused of the killing of difficult Deputy Police Chief Diane Bray, and of framing the deformed psychopath who killed Diane and burst into Kay's home with murderous intent. Even the hideous death of Kay's lover Benton, several books ago, turns out to have been more complicated than we thought. Kay finds herself in jeopardy several times over with her headstrong lesbian niece, her only entirely reliable ally. This is a book in which Cornwell takes her heroine into new areas--we get the same amount of complicated forensic lore, but there is a new personal urgency to it, a sense that detection is not a game. Kay's relationships with colleagues have always been prickly, but here they become more problematic than ever before; Cornwell's admirers will be pleased by this, her most tense and nervy book for years. --Roz Kaveney This review refers to the hardcover edition of this title. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

This book is classically constructed, moves logically along an absorbing plot line, creares enough tension to make it a page-turner, and packs a smashing surprise denouement. (SCOTSMAN )

As always the forensic detail is fascinating. (DAILY EXPRESS )

The plotting has the cold assurance of the earlier books, and the characterisation of Scarpetta and her associates is as rich and idiosyncratic as ever. (CRIME TIME )

Cornwell has written an elegy to the way in which we create and destroy our own worlds. And whe she is this good, she is hard to beat. (NEW STATESMAN )

'Forget the pretenders. Cornwell reigns.'

The eleventh Scarpetta novel, in which the Chief Medical Examiner is under a Grand Jury investigation for murder. She knows she's being framed and she no longer knows who she can trust ...

Physically and psychologically bruised by her encounter with the killer Chandonne, Dr Kay Scarpetta has to leave her home in the hands of the police team investigating the attack. She finds shelter with an old friend, Anna Zenner, but it is not the haven of security she needs when she discovers that Anna has been sub-poenaed to appear before a Grand Jury which is investigating Scarpetta for murder. Kay knows she is being framed and she also knows she can trust no-one. Meanwhile it appears that Chandonne killed a woman in New York before his murderous spree in Virginia, but when Scarpetta looks more closely into that case with the NY prosectuor Jaime Berger, proof of his guilt is far from certain - in fact she begins to believe that he may not be the perpetrator of any of the crimes he is accused of. As she follows the forensic trail to the real killer she gradually realises that someone has been spinning a web for years with the aim of entrapping her. Who is it, and why are they so desperate to be rid of her? Visit the author's own website on www.patricia-cornwell.com

The eleventh Scarpetta novel, in which the Chief Medical Examiner is under a Grand Jury investigation for murder. She knows she’s being framed and she no longer knows who she can trust…

Physically and psychologically bruised by her encounter with the killer Chandonne, Dr Kay Scarpetta has to leave her home in the hands of the police team investigating the attack. She finds shelter with an old friend, Anna Zenner, but it is not the haven of security she needs when she discovers that Anna has been sub-poenaed to appear before a Grand Jury which is investigating Scarpetta for murder. Kay knows she is being framed and she also knows she can trust no-one.

Menawhile it appears that Chandonne killed a woman in New York before his murderous spree in Virginia, but when Scarpetta looks more closely into that case with the NY prosecutor Jaime Berger, proof of his guilt is far from certain – in fact she begins to believe that he may not be the perpetrator of any of the crimes he is accused of. As she follows the forensic trail to the real killer she gradually realises that someone has been spinning a web for years with the aim of entrapping her. Who is it, and why are they so desperate to be rid of her?

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Patricia Cornwell's first novel, POSTMORTEM, was published in 1990 and won five international awards. Her Scarpetta novels have since become Number One bestsellers throughout the world. She has also published two police procedurals, HORNET'S NEST and SOUTHERN CROSS.