Book of the Dead A

　　The "book of the dead" is the morgue log, the ledger in whichall cases are entered by hand. For Kay Scarpetta, however, it isabout to have a new meaning. Fresh from her bruising battle with apsychopath in Florida, Scarpetta decides ita s time for a change ofpace. Moving to the historic city of Charleston, South Carolina,she opens a unique private forensic pathology practice, one inwhich she and her colleagues offer expert crime scene investigationand autopsies to communities lacking local access to competentdeath investigation and modern technology. It seems like an idealsituation, until the murders and other violent deaths begin. Awoman is ritualistically murdered in her multi-million-dollar beachhome. The body of an abused young boy is found dumped in a desolatemarsh. A sixteen-year-old tennis star is found nude and mutilatednear Piazza Navona in Rome. Scarpetta has dealt with many brutaland unusual crimes before, but never a string of them as baffling,or as terrifying, as the ones before her now. Before she isthrough, that book of the dead will contain many names - and thepen may be poised to write her own.