Chaos

September 26, 2016
In bestseller Cornwell’s uneven 24th Kay Scarpetta novel (after 2015’s Depraved Heart), the forensic pathologist investigates the bizarre death of 23-year-old Brit Elisa Vandersteelis, who was riding her bicycle in a Cambridge, Mass., park when she suffered a fatal electrical burn that looks like a lightning strike but isn’t. Meanwhile, Scarpetta’s FBI agent husband, Benton Wesley, is called away on matters of national security, which turn out to involve the sudden death of Gen. John Briggs, a long-time friend of Scarpetta’s and one of the backers of her Cambridge Forensic Center. Electricity seemed to play a role in his death, too, making Scarpetta believe there’s a connection.
Of course, whenever there’s a series of suspicious deaths, the specter of Carrie Grethen, Scarpetta’s nemesis, isn’t far from her thoughts. Coupled with threats she’s been receiving from the mysterious Tailend Charlie, these new deaths appear to fit Carrie’s MO. Lots of cutting-edge forensic detail and some revelatory character moments help compensate for a plot with only occasional flashes of narrative energy. Agent: Esther Newberg, ICM.

June 15, 2016

Odd that 26-year-old Elisa Vandersteel seems to have been killed by lightening while riding her bike along the Charles River one starlit night. Soon thereafter, medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta starts receiving creepy poems about the case from an anonymous cyberbully, and the media go berserk when lab results confirm Scarpetta's implausible lightning hypothesis. With a million-copy first printing.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2016
Chaos is Cornwell's twenty-fourth thriller starring medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta. The stakes are always high for Kay, and this time out they are raised by a poetic cyberbully who knows way too many intimate details about her, her family, and her forensics team. Fans of the series will not be surprised by the identity of the villain, but if they can last through the interminable opening dialogue and the tedious walk through Harvard Square, they will rejoice when the forensics tent is finally set up and Kay shifts into overdrive. A young woman has been killed while riding her bicycle in JFK Park, her body displaying all the classic marks of a lightning strike. The weather is unbearably hot and humid, but there are no clouds and no thunder. Cornwell serves up a chaos theory all her own that includes an application of nanotechnology that is as terrifying as the disturbed minds of its creators. The ending borders on melodramatic but brings unexpected revelations that will undoubtedly affect her familial relationships in future stories. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Despite some unevenness in her recent efforts, Cornwell continues to sit comfortably at the crime-fiction best-seller table.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)