Patricia Cornwell Books in Order

This biography traces Ruth Bell Graham’s life from her turbulent childhood in 1920s China, through her marriage to evangelist Billy Graham, to decades of raising a family and quietly championing people on society’s margins. Cornwell focuses on everyday faith, hardship, and Ruth’s wry independence.

In the first Kay Scarpetta novel, Virginia’s chief medical examiner investigates a string of brutal stranglings in Richmond. As the killer grows bolder, she must trust forensic clues, a prickly detective, and her young niece to survive the hunt.

A reclusive romance author is savagely stabbed after weeks of anonymous threats, and her final manuscript disappears. Scarpetta follows the trail from Richmond to Florida, uncovering literary secrets, an old lover, and a killer whose obsession turns her into the next target.

Young couples keep vanishing along lonely Virginia roads, their remains turning up months later. When the daughter of a powerful federal official is among the dead, Scarpetta faces political pressure and scant evidence as she maps a serial killer’s pattern.

After Scarpetta oversees the execution of convicted killer Ronnie Waddell, a new murder appears to bear his signature and fingerprints. She must untangle corrupted evidence, computer tampering, and a chilling new adversary to prove that something far stranger than a copycat is at work.

When an eleven-year-old girl is found murdered in rural North Carolina, Scarpetta is drawn into a case that echoes an elusive serial killer. With Lucy interning at the FBI and a clandestine research facility known as the Body Farm, she pieces together how the child died and why.

Christmas Eve in New York turns nightmarish when Scarpetta links a murdered woman in Central Park to fugitive serial killer Temple Gault. As bodies appear from subway tunnels to her own morgue, she races to stop an enemy who treats the investigation as his private game.

An omnibus edition that brings together Postmortem and Body of Evidence, the first two Kay Scarpetta novels. It offers a convenient way to experience Scarpetta’s debut cases, from a Richmond serial killer to a stalker obsessed with a reclusive author.

On New Year’s Eve, an investigative reporter is found dead in diving gear beneath Virginia’s icy Elizabeth River. Scarpetta’s autopsy pulls her, Marino, and Lucy into a web of Navy secrets and possible terrorism that reaches far beyond a single suspicious drowning.

Set in Charlotte, North Carolina, this novel follows police chief Judy Hammer, her driven deputy Virginia West, and eager reporter cop Andy Brazil as they hunt a killer targeting visiting businessmen. The story blends front line police work with newsroom politics and Southern city tensions.

Headless, limbless bodies in Ireland and a landfill near Richmond suggest a single ruthless killer, but Scarpetta soon suspects something worse, a designer virus weaponized for murder. Battling media leaks and political rivals, she must stop a bioterror threat at its source.

A lavish Virginia horse farm burns to the ground, leaving a single charred corpse and almost no trace of how the blaze began. As Scarpetta investigates linked arson murders, escaped psychopath Carrie Grethen returns, turning the case into a deeply personal vendetta.

This holiday novella follows Scarpetta, Marino, and Lucy through the quiet week between Christmas and New Year as they cook, visit family, and befriend a lonely neighborhood boy. Woven through the story are detailed recipes from Scarpetta’s kitchen for readers to try themselves.

Police chief Judy Hammer accepts a federal grant to overhaul the troubled Richmond police force, dragging Virginia West and Andy Brazil into a city simmering with class and racial tensions. Their efforts to modernize the department collide with petty politics, eccentric locals, and crimes that turn suddenly deadly.

A decomposed body discovered in a cargo container from Europe pulls Scarpetta into an Interpol hunt for a sadistic killer known as the Werewolf. Back in Richmond, office politics and a corrupt new police chief make it hard to see who is ally and who is enemy.

In this illustrated fable, a carefree boy named Jarrod lives in a weightless, perfect land where no one has ever fallen. When he is tempted to enter a forbidden pond in exchange for anything he wants, he discovers how choice, risk, and responsibility are tangled together.

This omnibus volume gathers Postmortem, Body of Evidence, and All That Remains, charting Scarpetta’s evolution from her first Richmond case to the hunt for a killer preying on young couples. It is ideal for readers who want the early trilogy in one place.

A Second Scarpetta Omnibus collects Cruel and Unusual, The Body Farm, and From Potter’s Field. The cases range from an executed killer who seems to kill again to an eleven-year-old’s murder and Scarpetta’s escalating battle with Temple Gault.

In the aftermath of a brutal attack in her own home, Scarpetta finds herself both treating Jean-Baptiste Chandonne and defending herself against accusations of murder. As investigators pick apart her past cases and relationships, she must solve the killings to clear her name.

A companion cookbook for Scarpetta fans, this volume gathers recipes inspired by the dishes Kay cooks in the novels, from New Year’s lasagna to crab cakes and pizzas. Short notes tie each recipe back to the scenes and characters that first made it memorable.

When Virginia’s governor orders aggressive new traffic enforcement, the tiny island of Tangier declares symbolic war on the state. Judy Hammer, now heading the state police, and trooper Andy Brazil must navigate local rebellion, political theater, and real crimes in a farcical coastal standoff.

This third omnibus volume collects Cause of Death, Unnatural Exposure, and Point of Origin, following Scarpetta through a suspicious diving death, a possible bioterror outbreak, and a lethal arson case entangled with escaped killer Carrie Grethen.

In this controversial true crime investigation, Cornwell applies modern forensic methods and archival research to the Victorian Jack the Ripper murders. She argues that painter Walter Sickert fits the evidence, walking readers through crime scene details, letters, and the limits of historical proof.

Having left her post in Virginia, Scarpetta is rebuilding a life as a forensic consultant in Florida. When threads from old cases resurface, she, Marino, Lucy, and Benton are drawn into an international pursuit that forces them to confront unfinished, and deadly, business.

This collection packages Postmortem and Body of Evidence together for new readers. It showcases Scarpetta’s earliest investigations and introduces the forensic focus, Richmond setting, and core cast that anchor the long running series.

Volume II pairs All That Remains with Cruel and Unusual, presenting Scarpetta’s battles with a killer stalking young couples and a death row case that refuses to stay closed. It highlights how forensic science and political pressure collide in her world.

Five years after leaving Richmond, Scarpetta is asked back to consult on the inexplicable death of a fourteen-year-old girl. As she battles a vain new chief and a decaying lab, a disturbed former employee stalks Lucy, tying the cold morgue to a very present threat.

While mentoring at a forensic training academy in Florida, Scarpetta and her team investigate a series of brutal murders stretching to Boston. A secret brain research project nicknamed PREDATOR hints that some offenders may be wired differently, but the real monster hides in plain sight.

Massachusetts state investigator Win Garano is yanked from training in Tennessee when ambitious DA Monique Lamont orders him to reopen a decades old murder as a showcase for her crime initiative. As he digs into the cold case, a brutal attack on Lamont shows the past is not finished.

Running a private forensic practice in Charleston, Scarpetta is called to Rome to examine a slain teenage tennis star. The case of the so called Sandman soon reaches back to the American South, straining her partnership with Marino and testing a fragile peace in her personal life.

In New York City, Scarpetta is asked to examine an oddly injured prisoner in Bellevue’s psychiatric ward, a man who insists someone is trying to frame him for a series of grotesque attacks. His shifting story drags her into a tangle of celebrity crime, digital voyeurism, and paranoia.

In the follow up to At Risk, Garano is pushed to look into the unsolved rape and murder of a blind woman that may connect to the Boston Strangler legend. Working under Lamont’s political agenda and a loose coalition of small departments, he uncovers corruption much closer to home.

During a hectic December week in Manhattan, Scarpetta juggles a suspicious Central Park death, the disappearance of glamorous trader Hannah Starr, and a live television appearance that turns chilling when a caller targets her on air. Media glare and hidden ties inside her own circle complicate every move.

Fresh from a fellowship at the military’s Port Mortuary, Scarpetta returns to lead a cutting edge forensic center in Cambridge. When scans suggest that a young man was sealed in the morgue while still alive, her past Air Force obligations and new high tech tools collide in a sensitive case.

Still haunted by her deputy Jack Fielding’s murder, Scarpetta travels to a Georgia women’s prison to question the woman who once abused him. What begins as a personal quest soon links a Savannah family massacre, a death row inmate, and a plot with frighteningly modern methods.

A paleontologist vanishes from a dinosaur dig in the Canadian wilderness, yet the only evidence turns up in Scarpetta’s email in Boston. As she analyzes bizarre traces that seem millions of years old, she uncovers connections to a savage local killing and fractures inside her own team.

After working a mass shooting, Scarpetta is called to MIT, where a young tech prodigy’s body lies artfully posed and dusted with strange fluorescent particles. The case echoes a string of Capital murder victims and points toward manipulated evidence, big money, and someone determined to outsmart her lab.

This short work returns to the Jack the Ripper investigation years after Portrait of a Killer. Cornwell outlines new forensic leads, refines her case against Walter Sickert, and reflects on what it has meant to devote so much time and resources to an unsolved Victorian crime.

On the morning of her birthday, Scarpetta spots a line of gleaming 1981 pennies outside her Cambridge home, just before a local music teacher is shot with impossible precision. As similar sniper attacks surface from New Jersey to Florida, the trail circles unnervingly close to Lucy.

While examining a suspicious death in an old Cambridge mansion, Scarpetta starts receiving anonymous video clips showing her niece Lucy as a young FBI trainee. The eerie surveillance footage, a Hollywood heir’s death, and a revived enemy suggest a long game aimed directly at her family.

A cyclist collapses along the Charles River on a cloudless evening, her body bearing signs of a bizarre electrical attack. As taunting poems from an online tormentor flood in, Scarpetta suspects a hidden weapon that can kill from a distance and expose her own vulnerabilities.

Ripper: The Secret Life of Walter Sickert revisits Cornwell’s Jack the Ripper research, focusing on the life and art of the Victorian painter. Combining narrative history, reproduced documents, and forensic analysis, she renews her argument that Sickert was behind the infamous Whitechapel murders.

Captain Calli Chase, a NASA pilot and quantum physicist who also investigates cybercrime, responds to a security alarm in the tunnels beneath a research center on the eve of a classified launch. Traces of blood, a missing badge, and a supposed suicide point toward her missing twin sister and a threat to the mission.

In the sequel to Quantum, Calli Chase faces the fallout from a sabotaged rocket launch and a ruthless adversary with reach into space and government. As advanced implants and AI systems inside her own body become key tools, she must protect her family and intercept a dangerous object in orbit.

Returning to Virginia as chief medical examiner, Scarpetta inherits a troubled office and a high profile job in post pandemic Alexandria. A mutilated body by the railroad tracks and a deadly incident aboard a secret space laboratory pull her into a national security investigation watched from the White House.

Testifying in a nationally televised murder trial, Scarpetta is thrust into the spotlight just as the presiding judge’s sister is found dead in her country home. With no clear cause of death and a blighted landscape outside, she uncovers links to experimental weapons and homegrown extremists.

After a deadly Halloween in Virginia, Scarpetta joins Lucy and Marino on a hazardous mission to recover two mutilated campers from remote backcountry. Rumors of Bigfoot, strange footprints, and a hidden micro–hard drive pull her into a murky mix of espionage, political spin, and very modern terror.

Set over a tense Christmas, Sharp Force pits Scarpetta against the Phantom Slasher, a serial killer who invades homes with eerie holographic images before striking. As bodies turn up on Mercy Island and near her own circle, cutting edge surveillance tech and uncanny clues make the case feel almost supernatural.