The Scarpetta Factor

Kay Scarpetta is volunteering at the New York City medical examiner's office in the week before Christmas when a television appearance about a high-profile missing woman triggers an unsettling call from one of her husband Benton's former psychiatric patients, followed by the discovery of a suspicious package at her apartment building. Patricia Cornwell's seventeenth Scarpetta novel pulls multiple threads simultaneously: a media-savvy missing persons case, a threat on Scarpetta's life, and the appearance of a famous actor caught in a sex crime accusation.

Kate Reading brings a cool professionalism to Scarpetta that suits the character, handling the novel's procedural detail with the same authority as its emotional flashpoints. Reading's steady delivery through the novel's longer forensic passages keeps them engaging rather than dry, and her management of the thriller's pacing in the final sections gives the climax its proper weight. At just over sixteen hours, The Scarpetta Factor is a dense but satisfying entry in a long-running series.