Cause of Death

Cause of Death is a crime novel by Patricia Cornwell and the seventh book in the Dr. Kay Scarpetta series, centred on the Chief Medical Examiner. Scarpetta faces a series of apparently unconnected deaths that, as the investigation advances, reveal a link between them.

Among the victims are Ted Eddings, an award-winning investigative reporter for the Associated Press whose body is found in the Elizabeth River, tethered to a compressor that pumps breathing air down to him, and Danny Webster, found in Libby Hill Park in Richmond, Virginia, killed by a single gunshot to the head with a Black Talon round. Also among the deaths is that of Joel Hand, leader of the New Zionists, who falls into the water used to cool the nuclear assemblies at a power station and dies after swallowing radioactive water.

The plot brings Scarpetta together with Police Captain Pete Marino, with Benton Wesley, an FBI profiler with whom she has a relationship despite his marriage, and with her niece Lucy Farinelli, in an investigation that combines forensic science with the personal tensions of its characters.