Sharp Force

＂During/the early hours of Christmas/morning, chief medical examiner/Dr./Kay/Scarpetta receives/a chilling call. The Phantom Slasher/has struck again. The/serial killer has/terrorized/Northern Virginia for months. His pattern is/to stalk with a sophisticated technology that enables him to invade his victims’ homes and watch their every move./They wake up to/a ghost-like hologram before being murdered/ in their beds. Scarpetta/is summoned to/Mercy Island, the site of/a notorious/psychiatric hospital where two people have been brutalized, one of them from/Scarpetta’s/past. It soon becomes apparent that she/ could be next...＂--Provided by publisher.

In 1990, Patricia Cornwell sold her first novel, Postmortem, while working at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Richmond, Virginia. An auspicious debut, it went on to win the Edgar, Creasey, Anthony, and Macavity Awards, as well as the French Prix du Roman d’Aventures--the first book ever to claim all these distinctions in a single year. Growing into an international phenomenon, the Scarpetta series won Cornwell the Sherlock Award for best detective created by an American author, the Gold Dagger Award, the RBA Thriller Award, and the Medal of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters for her contributions to literary and artistic development.

Today, Cornwell’s novels and iconic characters are known around the world. Beyond the Scarpetta series, Cornwell has written the definitive nonfiction account of Jack the Ripper’s identity, cookbooks, a children’s book, a biography of Ruth Graham, and three other fictional series based on the characters Win Garano, Andy Brazil, and Captain Calli Chase. Cornwell continues exploring the latest space-age technologies and threats relevant to contemporary life. Her interests range from the morgue to artificial intelligence and include visits to Interpol, the Pentagon, the U.S. Secret Service, and NASA.

Cornwell was born in Miami. She grew up in Montreat, North Carolina, and now lives and works in Boston.