A serial killer terrorizes Northern Virginia, his ability to come and go baffling those pursuing him with zero success.
He disables the victims' WIFI, attacking them in bed, the cause of death exsanguination due to sharp force injuries.
This has been going on for six months when Dr. Kay Scarpetta is awakened by her phone in the early morning hours of June 12, her birthday. She's informed that the Phantom Slasher has struck again, only this time there are two victims, and one of them has survived, the scene Mercy Island and its notorious old psychiatric hospital. This is a modern ghost story, a ghastly apparition seen around the time the Slasher strikes in each case. The same figure in black is spotted levitating through the fog, and the technical explanation is one that's of keen interest to the CIA, even the White House.
It's up to Scarpetta to stop the Phantom Slasher before they strike again and vanish, leaving another trail of blood in their wake.
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.
