SeriesStack

Kay Scarpetta Books in Order

by Patricia CornwellLiterature & Fiction

29 books so far (book 30 is due January 19, 2027). They run from Postmortem (1990) to Sharp Force (2025). Rated 4.3 across 60,575 listener reviews.

Next Kay Scarpetta book

Rapid and Fatal

Book 30 · out January 19, 2027 · preorder now

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Reading order

  1. Postmortem

    Book 1 1990 4.3 (6.7k)

    Four young women have been found murdered—tortured and strangled in their own beds—all victims of the same brilliant monster.

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  2. Body of Evidence

    Book 2 1990 4.4 (3.8k)

    Late one night Beryl Madison turns off her burglar alarm, puts down her gun and opens her door to the man who has stalked and terrorized her for months. Hours later, her brutally mutilated body lies in the city morgue.

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  3. All That Remains

    Book 3 1992 4.5 (3.3k)

    A serial killer is stalking Virginia's young lovers, taking their lives and taunting police with a single clue: a jack of hearts. For two years, the meaning of this card has eluded FBI investigators.

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  4. Cruel and Unusual

    Book 4 2011 4.6 (2.6k)

    When an executed murderer's fingerprints turn up at a new crime scene, Kay Scarpetta investigates. Prepare for the kind of riveting suspense this best-selling author delivers so well...

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  5. The Body Farm

    Book 5 1994 4.6 (1.3k)

    When an eleven-year-old girl is found murdered, Kay Scarpetta, Chief Medical Examiner for the Commonwealth of Virginia, gets another chance at stopping one of the most heartless and horrifying serial killers of her career: the demented…

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  6. From Potters Field

    Book 6 2011 4.2 (456)

    An unidentified nude female sits propped against a fountain in Central Park. There are no signs of struggle. When Dr. Kay Scarpetta and her colleagues Benton Wesley and Pete Marino arrive on the scene, they instantly recognize the…

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  7. Cause of Death

    Book 7 1995 4.3 (2.4k)

    On a quiet day, away from the hustle of Richmond, in a small cottage on the Virginia coast, Dr. Kay Scarpetta receives a disturbing phone call from the Chesapeake police.

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  8. Unnatural Exposure

    Book 8 1997 4.4 (2.1k)

    Filled with tension and continual surprises, Unnatural Exposure is a thrilling chapter in Virginia Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta's life--and a triumph for #1 New York Times best-selling author Patricia Cornwell.

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  9. Point of Origin

    Book 9 1998 4.3 (1.4k)

    This dazzling thriller pits Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta against greater odds than ever before. Convicted serial killer Carrie Grethen has escaped from psychiatric hospital with plans for revenge.

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  10. Black Notice

    Book 10 1756 4.6 (1.8k)

    Following the post mortem of a stowaway which reveals neither cause of death nor identity, Dr Kay Scarpetta travels to Paris in search of information. In Paris she is given a secret mission, a mission which could ruin her career...

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  11. The Last Precinct

    Book 11 2000 4.7 (1.7k)

    The eleventh Scarpetta novel, in which the Chief Medical Examiner is under a Grand Jury investigation for murder. She knows she’s being framed and she no longer knows who she can trust… Physically and psychologically bruised by her…

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  12. Blow Fly

    Book 12 2001 4.5 (1.5k)

    The Twelfth Dr Kay Scarpetta Novel. Dr Kay Scarpetta has left Virginia in quest of peace but instead finds herself drawn into baffling, horrific murders in Florida, where she becomes entangled in an international conspiracy that confronts…

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  13. Trace

    Book 13 1529 4.2 (1.5k)

    When Dr. Kay Scarpetta, freelancing from South Florida, returns to Richmond, Virginia, at the request of the recently appointed Chief Medical Examiner, who claims that he needs her help to solve a crime, she finds that nothing is as she…

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  14. Predator

    Book 14 1742 3.6 (1.1k)

    Dr. Kay Scarpetta, now freelancing with the National Forensic Academy in Florida, takes charge of a case that stretches from steamy Florida to snowbound Boston, one as unnerving as any she has ever faced.

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  15. Book of the Dead

    Book 15 2000 3.9 (1.9k)

    Unabridged CDs - 9 CDs, 11 hours From America's #1 bestselling crime writer comes the extraordinary new Dr. Kay Scarpetta novel...

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  16. Scarpetta

    Book 16 2008 4.0 (2k)

    Scarpetta, an all-new Original Series, is out now on Prime Video! Enter the chilling and captivating world of Dr. Kay Scarpetta before Nicole Kidman and Jamie Lee Curtis bring the mystery to life onscreen.

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  17. The Scarpetta Factor

    Book 17 2008 4.1 (1.7k)

    It is the week before Christmas. A tanking economy has prompted Dr. Kay Scarpetta - despite her busy schedule and her continuing work as the senior forensic analyst for CNN - to offer her services pro bono to New York City's Office of the…

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  18. Port Mortuary

    Book 18 2010 3.9 (1.9k)

    The new Kay Scarpetta novel from the world's #1 bestselling crime writer. "When it comes to the forensic sciences, nobody can touch Cornwell." -The New York Times Book Review Port Mortuary, the title of Patricia Cornwell's eighteenth…

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  19. Red Mist

    Book 19 2011 4.1 (2.7k)

    The new Kay Scarpetta novel from the world's #1 bestselling crime writer. Determined to find out what happened to her former deputy chief, Jack Fielding, murdered six months earlier, Kay Scarpetta travels to the Georgia Prison for Women,…

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  20. The Bone Bed

    Book 20 2012 4.1 (2.3k)

    A woman has vanished while digging a dinosaur bone bed in the remote wilderness of Canada. Somehow, the only evidence has made its way to the inbox of Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta, over 2,000 miles away in Boston.

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  21. Dust

    Book 21 2013 4.0 (2.6k)

    From the world’s number-one bestselling crime writer comes the extraordinary new Kay Scarpetta novel. Massachusetts Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta has just returned from working one of the worst mass murders in U.S.

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  22. Flesh and Blood

    Book 22 2014 4.2 (2k)

    It’s Dr. Kay Scarpetta’s birthday, and she’s about to head to Miami for a vacation with Benton Wesley, her FBI profiler husband, when she notices seven pennies on a wall behind their Cambridge house.

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  23. Depraved Heart

    Book 23 2015 4.1 (2.9k)

    Patricia Cornwell delivers the newest engrossing thriller in her high-stakes series starring medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta. Depraved Heart: “Void of social duty and fatally bent on mischief.” —Mayes v. People, 806 III. 306 (1883) Dr.

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  24. Chaos

    Book 24 2016 4.1 (2.7k)

    #1 New York Times bestselling author Patricia Cornwell returns with the remarkable twenty-fourth thriller in her popular high-stakes series starring medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta.

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  25. Autopsy

    Book 25 2021 4.2 (5)

    Scarpetta is back! In this twenty-fifth in the electrifying, landmark #1 bestselling thriller series chief medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta hunts an ingenious killer who has mastered cutting-edge science for the most nefarious ends.

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  26. Livid

    Book 26 2022 4.4 (2.5k)

    In this thrilling installment of the #1 bestselling series, chief medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta finds herself a reluctant star witness in a sensational televised murder trial causing chaos in Old Town Alexandria with the threat of…

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  27. Unnatural Death

    Book 27 2023 4.3 (1.3k)

    Chief medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta solves the baffling case of two mauled bodies in the woods and the mysteriously large footprint found nearby in this thriller from a New York Times bestselling author.

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  28. Identity Unknown

    Book 28 2024 4.5 (1.3k)

    From a bestselling author, a "hauntingly original, impossibly clever and devilishly daring" thriller in which Scarpetta receives a message from beyond the grave…(Chris Whitaker, author of All the Colors of the Dark) Autopsies can reveal…

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  29. Sharp Force

    Book 29 2025 4.5 (1.2k)

    From #1 New York Times bestselling author Patricia Cornwell, a serial killer wreaks havoc on Northern Virginia, appearing as a ghostly apparition before striking—and Scarpetta must avoid becoming their next victim.

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  30. Rapid and Fatal

    Book 30 Out January 19, 2027

    The New York Times bestselling Kay Scarpetta series is now an original series on Amazon Prime! To stop a diabolical series of mysterious murders, Dr.

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About this reading order

Books are listed in the series' own numbering, which for Kay Scarpetta is also the best order to read them in. Years are first publication where we could confirm it, and otherwise the first audiobook release.

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