Chaos: A Scarpetta Novel

Patricia Cornwell

Nov 2016 · Kay Scarpetta Book 24 · Sold by HarperCollins

About this ebook

“When it comes to the forensic sciences, nobody can touch Cornwell.”

—New York Times Book Review

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CHAOS

From the Ancient Greek (χάος or kháos)

A vast chasm or void. Anarchy. The science of unpredictability.

On a late summer evening in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Dr. Kay Scarpetta and her investigative partner, Pete Marino, respond to a call about a dead bicyclist near the Kennedy School of Government. It appears that a young woman has been attacked with almost superhuman force.

Even before Scarpetta’s headquarters has been officially notified about the case, Marino and Scarpetta’s FBI agent husband, Benton Wesley, receive suspicious calls, allegedly from someone at Interpol. But it makes no sense. Why would the elite international police agency know about the case or be interested? It soon becomes apparent that an onslaught of harassment might be the work of an anonymous cyberbully named Tailend Charlie, who has been sending cryptic communications to Scarpetta for over a week.

Even Lucy, her brilliant tech-savvy niece, can’t trace who it is or how this person could have access to intimate information. When a second death shocks Scarpetta to her core, it becomes apparent she and those close to her are confronted with something far bigger and more dangerous than they’d ever imagined.

 

Ratings and reviews

My goodness. What a slow moving and boring book. At this point in Ms Pat's writing career it is time to move on from Ms Kay's character. Don't care about where her perfume came from or what car her hubby's driving etc. Felt like I was reading a Harlequin Romance 75% of the time. Feels like this book was written to fill the needed quota of pages to keep the publisher signing those checks. Was a huge fan. Not so much any more. Sorry. Time for me to move on to a fresh new author.

Sad to see a beloved and strong character misrepresented by its author. After experiencing a long career of personal threats and murderous stalkers, her increasingly impulsive decisions and disregard for personal safety leave her befuddled as to why the team is in a constant frenzy to keep her from almost certain harm. In her last few books, Kay seems to be crippled by repetitive observations and narrative, meandering, cloying thoughts, and needless fretting that drag the reader through more muck than substance. Her corpse discovery and recovery episodes have become protracted and monotonous --a departure from her usual surgical precision. Autopsies are now afterthoughts, and her cases (thus the books) end with diseffective finish.

Patricia Cornwell is my favorite author, and I love her ❤️ Kay Scarpetta Books Chaos is a great book im reading it on my ZFold 3 , excellent series

About the author

Patricia Cornwell is recognized as one of the world’s top bestselling crime authors with novels translated into thirty-six languages in more than 120 countries. Her novels have won numerous prestigious awards including the Edgar, the Creasey, the Anthony, the Macavity, and the Prix du Roman d’Aventure. Beyond the Scarpetta series, Patricia has written a definitive book about Jack the Ripper, a biography, and three more fiction series among others. Cornwell, a licensed helicopter pilot and scuba diver, actively researches the forensic technologies that inform her work. She was born in Miami, grew up in Montreat, North Carolina, and now lives and works in Boston.