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Sharp Force

On sale

7th October 2025

Price: £22

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Selected: Hardcover / ISBN-13: 9781408722596

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NO ONE IS SAFE FROM THE SERIAL KILLER
NOT EVEN SCARPETTA…

During the early hours of Christmas morning, chief medical examiner Dr Kay Scarpetta receives a chilling call. The Phantom Slasher has struck again.

The serial killer has terrorized Northern Virginia for months. His pattern is to stalk with a sophisticated technology that enables him to invade his victims’ homes and watch their every move. They wake up to a ghost-like hologram before being murdered in their beds.

Scarpetta is summoned to Mercy Island, the site of a notorious psychiatric hospital where two people have been brutalized, one of them from Scarpetta’s past. It soon becomes apparent that she could be next . . .

Reviews

MAIL ON SUNDAY
The queen of the forensic thriller
MIRROR
Forget the pretenders. Cornwell reigns
EXPRESS
The Agatha Christie of the DNA age
BOOKLIST
An especially good entry in the series
ANDREA MARA
Classic Cornwell with an up-to-the-minute twenty-first-century plot - an intoxicating blend that proves Scarpetta is still queen of the autopsy and Cornwell is still queen of crime fiction. An utterly thrilling roller coaster ride
MAIL ON SUNDAY
The queen of the forensic thriller
EXPRESS
The Agatha Christie of the DNA age
SUNDAY TIMES
Astonishing . . . Thirty years on, there's still no other crime writer like her
SUN
Cutting-edge
CHRIS WHITAKER
A chilling, thrilling, macabre masterpiece. Unnatural Death is Patricia Cornwell at her mesmerising finest. The best just got better
DAVID BALDACCI
In Sharp Force Cornwell is at the very top of her game and Scarpetta is as finely wrought as ever. The research is as impeccable as always . . . You are in the hands of a master storyteller. Sit back and prepare to be thrilled
BBC
A pioneer of the genre of forensic psychological thriller
SUN
One of the all-time greats of this genre
GUARDIAN
One of the best crime writers writing today
HEAT
Cornwell really is in a league of her own
THE TIMES
America's most stimulating and chilling writer of crime fiction
MIRROR
Forget the pretenders. Cornwell reigns
SUNDAY TIMES
Thirty years on, there's still no other crime writer like her
-
PRAISE FOR PATRICIA CORNWELL
DAILY TELEGRAPH
The top gun in this field
-
PRAISE FOR UNNATURAL DEATH
DAILY TELEGRAPH
The top gun in this field
GUARDIAN
One of the best crime writers writing today
NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
When it comes to forensic sciences, nobody can touch Cornwell
-
PRAISE FOR PATRICIA CORNWELL
HEAT
Slick, fast-paced and brilliant
THE TIMES
America's most stimulating and chilling writer of crime fiction
M. J. ARLIDGE
Sinister, surprising and utterly unputdownable. Cornwell at her brilliant best