A body amongst the ruins. A farmhouse destroyed by fire. In the ruins of the house she finds a body which tells a story of a violent and grisly murder. Dr Kay Scarpetta, Chief Medical Examiner and consulting pathologist for the federal law enforcement agency ATF, is called out to a farmhouse in Virginia which has been destroyed by fire. Her whereabouts is unknown, but her ultimate destination is not, for Carrie has begun to communicate with Scarpetta, conveying her deadly - if cryptic - plans for revenge. The fire has come at the same time as another, even more incendiary horror: Carrie Grethen, a killer who nearly destroyed the lives of Scarpetta and those closest to her, has escaped from a forensic psychiatric hospital. "Point of Origin" is Patricia Cornwell at her most dazzling. Chillingly mesmeric in tone, labyrinthine in structure. 2008