Ireland is where all starts. Dr Kay Scarpetta is lecturing on coroner's techniques in a university while at the same time visiting a friend and colleague.

At the same time in the US, a serial killer is on the loose. A serial killer whose M.O. is familiar to that friend as the same exact killings happened ten years previously in Ireland without being solved.

Scarpetta comes back and a new body is found, same M.O. but different and her guts tell her that it is not the same killer, that someone is using the M.O. to hide something else. That is what Benton Wesley, a profiler at the FBI and Scarpettas lover, and Marino, who works at the police department an old friend, think too.

On the body of the old woman found were pustules and they desperately try to find out what is the cause of them. Soon they realized it is pox.

And all along the novel, Scarpetta's life is underlined.

I have to say I loved that novel even more than Hornet's nest. First because it is a Scarpetta novel, second because contrary to Hornet's nest, Cornwell does not give the killer until the end. Or, may be I was too tired to see all the hints this time, but frankly it was impossible to discover it as two serial killers are on the loose.

Buy it, Borrow it, do whatever to get your hands on it. But READ it. It is in paperback now, so it's affordable to anyone!

And First and foremost, ENJOY it as much as I enjoyed it.