Benton, Scarpetta’s husband, a FBI profiler, is away working on three linked murders of women in Washington DC, but his expertise is being ignored, disparaged even. And then the body of a murdered woman appears in Cambridge (Massachusetts, that is), Scarpetta’s jurisdiction, and it’s clear it’s connected to the three in Washington, even if it seems to contradict the prevailing theory held by the FBI about the crimes.

Scarpetta, Benton, Lucy and Marino find themselves trying to identify a serial killer who, it seems, is being protected by someone powerful, at least to the extent the FBI agent in charge of the investigation is ignoring evidence and focusing instead on a teenager who disappeared seventeen years before.

Once again, Scarpetta’s reputation is under attack, as are her family and relationships, but this time she sets out to methodically prove every point of her – and Benton’s – theory of the crimes, and so bring down the FBI agent deliberately misleading everyone. As in other books in the series, the murderer is more than human, almost as if the nearest the US can get to real-life superheroes are serial killers, which is pretty damn sick no matter which way you look at it. It might even be said crime novels which focus on serial killer stories – as so many of the Scarpetta series have – have much in common with fantasy or science fiction. True, one of the reasons I like the Scarpetta series is because Cornwell details the forensic science used – which does occasionally read like science fiction (much like the many CSI TV series).

Another draw is Cornwell’s focus on characterisation. Her cast are not enigmatic, phlegmatic, whimsical or just sketched-in, as is usually the case in crime fiction. She started out using first-person narratives, then switched to third-person omniscient before moving back again to first-person, except now there’s far more interiority and Scarpetta’s every thought is worked through implacably.

Dust (2013, USA) is one of the better books in the series, even though the plot centres around an implausible serial killer, and a defining event occurs off-stage and is far too easy to be credible. There’s also a fascinating article about Cornwell after the novel in the ebook edition, highlighting the many parallels between Cornwell herself and her characters, especially Scarpetta and Lucy..