Cornwell has brought back Kay Scarpetta for an an 18th adventure with her newest novel. The good news is that the series seems to have gotten its groove back as the story shifts from the personal crises of the various regular characters to actual cases as the primary focus. Scarpetta is now the chief medical examiner of Massachusetts and is based out of the Cambridge Forensic Center in Boston.

The story starts with Kay rushing to head north from a assignment at Port Mortuary at Dover Air Force Base. She has been working on a government project that is working on improving the use of virtual autopsies. Kay has had to put aside her work because she is being called in to assist on a bizarre case involving a young man who seems to have been murdered in a most bizarre way. To make things even stranger, his body started to bleed after it was packaged in a body bag ... long after he had been declared dead. Kay's niece Lucy has come down in her helicopter to quicken the transfer.

Along with the usual supporting cast of Pete Marina, the before-mentioned Lucy Farinelli, and her husband Benton Wesley, Kay finds herself being drawn closer and closer to a secret military project. The first clue is the inclusion of a wing from a spy-bot fly that is found at the scene of the murder. Things become more and more interesting as the team gets deeper into the investigation.

Kay is also drawn into another case when she lands in Lucy's helicopter in Massachusetts. She is greeted by a car and handed a letter from a well-to-do mother of a young man who has admitted to killing a boy in a most grisly way. His mother is trying to show that there is no way he could have committed the crime, and Benton seems to support that idea after he starts talking with the young man. Things become even more interesting as Kay learns that the letter may not have come from the person it was signed by.

Cornwell has added a new member to Kay's team. For the longest time, Kay was supported by a personal assistant named Rose, who died after a tough fight with cancer. It was at about that time, that Kay's life (and those of her friends) seemed to spin out of control, dragging the series down with it. Thankfully, Kay has gotten around to hiring a new assistant, and he takes on the form of a highly energetic gay man. His scenes add some fun humor to the gory book as well as provide Kay with an interesting sounding board to think through theories much the same way that Rose used to.

His insights into the office help provide key clues to something that is going on in Kay's office that is out of place. This helps her and her team get a handle on the third mystery which involves some hard feelings of a man she used to call a friend.

It is nice to have Cornwell back in the game.