Dr. Kay Scarpetta opens a private forensic pathology practice in Charleston, South Carolina, only to find herself and her colleagues--Pete Marino and her niece, Lucy--confronted by a horrifying series of crimes that may have an underlying link.

"When a New York City construction crane mysteriously collapses, causing mass destruction and injury, Rhyme and Sachs are on the case. A political group claims responsibility for the sabotage and threatens another attack in twenty-four hours, unless its demands are met. The clock is ticking. Then a clue reveals to Rhyme that his nemesis, known as the Watchmaker, has come to town to fulfill his promise of murdering the criminalist. Now Rhyme and Sachs...

A new discovery sets medical examiner Maura Isles on the trail of a centuries-dead serial killer who terrorized Boston with crimes in which Norris Marshall, a Harvard Medical School student, had become the prime suspect.

Leaving behind her Charleston forensic pathology practice to accept an assignment in New York City, Kay Scarpetta learns the story of an injured psychiatric patient who claims he was attacked by a stalker who was killing someone else at the time.

"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 disppearance is connected to a series of crimes much closer to home: a gruesome murder, inexplicable tortures,...

After he finds himself demoted from forensic pathologist to medical examiner in a Florida resort town, Edward Jenner must investigate the murder of his friend, the appearance of four bodies hanging in the Everglades, and the criminal conspiracy overshadowing it all.