The second book in the Kay Scarpetta series by No. 1 author Patricia Cornwell. A reclusive writer is dead. And her last manuscript has disappeared... Someone is watching Beryl Madison. Someone who spies on her and makes threatening, obscene phone calls. Afraid, Beryl flees to Key West - but eventually must return to her home in Richmond. On the night she arrives, Beryl unexpectedly invites her killer inside... Thus begins for Dr. Kay Scarpetta the investigation of a crime that is as complex as it is bizarre. Why did Beryl open the door to someone who violently and almost beheaded her? Did she know her killer? Adding to the complexity is Beryl's mysterious relationship with an award-winning author and the disappearance of her manuscript. As Scarpetta retraces Beryl's steps, an investigation that begins in the lab with microscopes and lasers leads her deep into a nightmare that soon becomes her own.

So far, the next book in the Scarpetta series, All That Remains, has also been published.