Trace

Kay Scarpetta returns to Richmond, Virginia, the city where she built her career and then lost it, at the request of the new Chief Medical Examiner she trained. But almost everything she expected to find there has changed or been erased, and the official story about why she was summoned quickly unravels. The death of a fourteen-year-old girl provides the case that pulls her into the investigation, while her former colleagues Benton and Lucy are entangled in what initially appears to be a separate threat. Trace is a novel of fractured relationships as much as forensic investigation.

Kate Reading brings a cool intelligence to Scarpetta's narration that suits the character's professional reserve and the personal undercurrents beneath it. The Richmond setting carries emotional weight throughout, and Reading conveys both the forensic precision Scarpetta is famous for and the human cost of the work. At just over twelve hours, this thirteenth entry in the series handles a complex, emotionally layered case with care.