Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0743255801, Hardcover)

Fans of Patricia Cornwell, the number one megastar who virtually invented the forensic thriller, will rejoice to see her first two novels, Postmortem and Body of Evidence, united in this much-anticipated omnibus volume. Hugely successful when they were first published, these are the two novels that brought Virginia Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta to the book-reading world. They are presented here complete and unabridged.

Postmortem

A serial killer is on the loose in Richmond, Virginia. Three women have died, brutalized and strangled in their own bedrooms. There is little pattern: the killer appears to strike at random -- but always early on Saturday mornings.

When Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta is awakened at 2:33 A.M., she knows the news is bad: there is a fourth victim, and she fears now for those who may follow unless she finds the forensic evidence that can break the case.

But not everyone wants her help. Not everyone is pleased to see a woman in this powerful job. Someone may even want to ruin her career and reputation before she can find the killer.

Body of Evidence

A reclusive writer is dead, and her final manuscript has disappeared...

Someone is stalking Beryl Madison. Someone who spies on her and makes threatening, obscene phone calls. Terrified, Beryl flees to Key West -- but eventually she must return to her Richmond home. The very night she arrives, Beryl inexplicably invites her killer inside.

Thus begins for Dr. Kay Scarpetta the investigation of a crime that is as convoluted as it is bizarre. Why would Beryl open the door to someone who would brutally slash and then neatly decapitate her? Did she know her killer? Adding to the intrigue is Beryl's enigmatic relationship with a prizewinning author and the disappearance of her own manuscript.

As Scarpetta retraces Beryl's footsteps, an investigation that begins in the laboratory with microscopes and lasers leads her deep into a nightmare that soon becomes her own.