130,000+ Books, Games & Puzzles in-stock 🇳🇿

Come visit us this weekend!🚀 Auckland Bookstore • Open 7 days, 8:30am–5pm

Postmortem

By Patricia Cornwell
Series: Kay Scarpetta
0.0 (0 reviews)
Brief Description
The inspiration for the upcoming Amazon Prime Video series Scarpetta—starring Nicole Kidman and Jamie Lee Curtis! From #1 New York Times bestselling author Patricia Cornwell comes Postmortem, the groundbreaking thriller that introduced Dr. Kay Scarpetta and redefined the crime genre. A killer is stalking the streets... Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
$5300

International Supplier

This title is in-stock with overseas suppliers. While it is not available locally, we fly books in weekly from the US and UK to our Auckland warehouse for immediate dispatch.

AVAILABLE WITH SUPPLIER Ships from our Auckland warehouse within 2-3 weeks

Found a better price? Request a price match

Now available in a tall Premium Edition, the novel that introduces one of suspense fiction's most compelling heroines--Dr. Kay Scarpetta--from a #1 "New York Times"-bestselling author. Reissue.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description
The inspiration for the upcoming Amazon Prime Video series Scarpetta—starring Nicole Kidman and Jamie Lee Curtis!

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Patricia Cornwell comes Postmortem, the groundbreaking thriller that introduced Dr. Kay Scarpetta and redefined the crime genre.

A killer is stalking the streets of Richmond, Virginia. When the bodies begin to mount, Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta is pulled into a chilling investigation that blends high-stakes forensics with psychological warfare. Armed with cutting-edge science and unflinching resolve, Scarpetta must navigate hostile forces both inside and outside the investigation—because someone isn't just trying to hide the truth. They're trying to kill her.

Cornwell's gift for combining expert-level criminology with bone-chilling suspense makes this book a true modern classic. Relentlessly paced and shockingly prescient, Postmortem is the electrifying first chapter in the Scarpetta series—still as razor-sharp and relevant as ever.

Series: Kay Scarpetta

View all
  • Sharp Force
    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 terrorised Northern Virginia for months. His pattern is to stalk with sophisticated technology that enables him to invade his victims' homes and...
    By Patricia Cornwell
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Postmortem
    A serial killer is on the loose in Richmond, Virginia. Three women have died, brutalised and strangled in their own bedroom. There is no pattern: the killer appears to strike at random, but always early on Saturday mornings. So when Dr Kay Scarpetta, chief medical officer, is awakened at 2.33 am, she knows the news is bad: there is a...
    By Patricia Cornwell
    Paperback
    $2300
    Elsewhere:
    $2499
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Cruel And Unusual
    The fingerprints say the murderer is the man who's just been executed... At 11.05 one December evening in Richmond, Virginia, convicted murderer Ronnie Joe Waddell is pronounced dead in the electric chair. At the morgue, Dr. Kay Scarpetta waits for Waddell's body. Preparing to perform a post-mortem before the subject is dead is a strange feeling, but Scarpetta has been...
    By Patricia Cornwell
    Paperback
    $2600
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • On Sale
    18% off
    Book Of The Dead
    The Book of the Dead is the morgue log, the ledger in which all cases are entered by hand. For Kay Scarpetta, however, it is about to have a new meaning. Fresh from her bruising battle with a psychopath in Florida, Scarpetta decides it's time for a change of pace. Moving to the historic city of Charleston, South Carolina, she...
    By Patricia Cornwell
    Paperback
    $2300
    Usually:
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • The Bone Bed
    The twentieth book in the Kay Scarpetta series, from No. 1 bestselling author Patricia Cornwell. 'America's most chilling writer of crime fiction' The Times A woman has vanished while digging a dinosaur bone bed in the remote wilderness of Canada. Somehow, the only evidence has made its way to the inbox of Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta, over two thousand...
    By Patricia Cornwell
    Paperback
    $2300
    Elsewhere:
    $2499
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Unnatural Death
    The breathtaking new Kay Scarpetta thriller from the global bestseller Two mauled bodies in the woods. Two top secret autopsies. The most chilling case of Scarpetta's career . . . Chief medical examiner Dr Kay Scarpetta finds herself in a Northern Virginia wilderness examining the remains of two campers wanted by federal law enforcement. The victims have been savaged beyond...
    By Patricia Cornwell
    Paperback
    $2799
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Postmortem
    The first book in the Kay Scarpetta series, from No. 1 bestselling author Patricia Cornwell - coming soon to Prime Video. A serial killer is on the loose in Richmond, Virginia. Three women have died, brutalised and strangled in their own bedroom. There is no pattern: the killer appears to strike at random - but always early on Saturday mornings....
    By Patricia Cornwell
    Paperback
    $2500
    Elsewhere:
    $2999
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Livid
    THE THRILLING NEW KAY SCARPETTA MYSTERY FROM THE #1 GLOBAL BESTSELLER 'I'M STILL SEEING STARS . . . KAY SCARPETTA IS THE SAME GRUMPY, WONDERFUL, RIVETING PERSONALITY SHE'S ALWAYS BEEN AND SHE'S ONLY GETTING BETTER WITH TIME' — JAMES PATTERSON Murder and mayhem. Scarpetta is back, and she's racing against the clock . . . Chief medical examiner Kay Scarpetta...
    By Patricia Cornwell
    Paperback
    $2600
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Cause Of Death
    An investigative reporter is found dead in Virginia's icy waters... New Year's Eve and the final murder scene of Virginia's bloodiest year takes Scarpetta thirty feet below the Elizabeth River's icy surface. A diver, Ted Eddings, is dead, an investigative reporter who was a favourite at the Medical Examiner's office. Was Eddings probing the frigid depths of the Inactive Shipyard...
    By Patricia Cornwell
    Paperback
    $2799
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • The Scarpetta Factor
    It is the week before Christmas. The effects of the credit crunch have prompted Dr Kay Scarpetta to offer her services pro bono to New York City's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. But in no time at all, her increased visibility seems to precipitate a string of dramatic and unsettling events. She is asked live on the air about...
    By Patricia Cornwell
    Paperback
    $2799
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Blow Fly
    After her resignation as Virginia's Chief Medical Examiner and the horrifying events which threatened her life in The Last Precinct, Kay Scarpetta has abandoned her elegant home in Richmond and is quietly living in Florida. She is beginning to get some balance back in her life and is slowly establishing herself as a private forensic consultant. But her past won't...
    By Patricia Cornwell
    Paperback
    $2600
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Red Mist
    The nineteenth book in the Kay Scarpetta series, from No. 1 bestselling author Patricia Cornwell. 'America's most chilling writer of crime fiction' The Times Red Mist follows Kay Scarpetta as she arranges to meet an inmate at the high-security Georgia Prison for Women. The prisoner is a convicted sex offender and the mother of a vicious and diabolically brilliant killer....
    By Patricia Cornwell
    Paperback
    $2600
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781668229637

Publisher: Scribner Book Company

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 17 February 2026

Imprint: Scribner Book Company

Edition: Media Tie-In ed.

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 28.0mm

Width: 132.0mm

Height: 202.0mm

Weight: 281g

Pages: 400

Collections

Crime & Thriller Fiction General Fiction Patricia Cornwell Series: Kay Scarpetta

About the Author

Patricia Cornwell is recognized as one of the world's top bestselling crime authors with novels translated into thirty-six languages in more than 120 countries. Her novels have won numerous prestigious awards including the Edgar, the Creasey, the Anthony, the Macavity, and the Prix du Roman d'Aventure. Beyond the Scarpetta series, Cornwell has written a definitive book about Jack the Ripper, a biography, and two more fiction series among others. Cornwell, a licensed helicopter pilot and scuba diver, actively researches the cutting-edge forensic technologies that inform her work. She was born in Miami, grew up in Montreat, NC, and now lives and works in Boston. Find out more at PatriciaCornwell.com, at Facebook.com/Patricia.Cornwell, on X: @1PCornwell, and on Instagram: @1PCornwell.

Also by Patricia Cornwell

View all
  • True Crime
    The No.1 Sunday Times bestselling author Patricia Cornwell finally tells the story that rivals all of the works that precede it: her own.Patricia Cornwell is best known for her international bestselling thriller series about forensic pathologist Dr Kay Scarpetta. Every story comes from somewhere, and Scarpetta's began when Patricia Cornwell embedded herself in a morgue. In this achingly honest memoir,...
    By Patricia Cornwell
    Paperback
    $3299
    Elsewhere:
    $3999
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Postmortem
    The first book in the Kay Scarpetta series, from No. 1 bestselling author Patricia Cornwell - coming soon to Prime Video. A serial killer is on the loose in Richmond, Virginia. Three women have died, brutalised and strangled in their own bedroom. There is no pattern: the killer appears to strike at random - but always early on Saturday mornings....
    By Patricia Cornwell
    Paperback
    $2500
    Elsewhere:
    $2999
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Predator
    Florida is full of human predators, and they all give Dr Kay Scarpetta the opportunity and the means to do what she does best—persuading the dead to speak to her. In Boston, Benton Wesley is working on a secret case involving convicted killers. It is a project which gives Scarpetta deep disquiet, as does the behaviour of her niece, Lucy,...
    By Patricia Cornwell
    Paperback
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Sharp Force
    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 terrorised Northern Virginia for months. His pattern is to stalk with sophisticated technology that enables him to invade his victims' homes and...
    By Patricia Cornwell
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • The Bone Bed
    The twentieth book in the Kay Scarpetta series, from No. 1 bestselling author Patricia Cornwell. 'America's most chilling writer of crime fiction' The Times A woman has vanished while digging a dinosaur bone bed in the remote wilderness of Canada. Somehow, the only evidence has made its way to the inbox of Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta, over two thousand...
    By Patricia Cornwell
    Paperback
    $2300
    Elsewhere:
    $2499
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Cruel And Unusual
    The fingerprints say the murderer is the man who's just been executed... At 11.05 one December evening in Richmond, Virginia, convicted murderer Ronnie Joe Waddell is pronounced dead in the electric chair. At the morgue, Dr. Kay Scarpetta waits for Waddell's body. Preparing to perform a post-mortem before the subject is dead is a strange feeling, but Scarpetta has been...
    By Patricia Cornwell
    Paperback
    $2600
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • On Sale
    18% off
    Book Of The Dead
    The Book of the Dead is the morgue log, the ledger in which all cases are entered by hand. For Kay Scarpetta, however, it is about to have a new meaning. Fresh from her bruising battle with a psychopath in Florida, Scarpetta decides it's time for a change of pace. Moving to the historic city of Charleston, South Carolina, she...
    By Patricia Cornwell
    Paperback
    $2300
    Usually:
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Postmortem
    A serial killer is on the loose in Richmond, Virginia. Three women have died, brutalised and strangled in their own bedroom. There is no pattern: the killer appears to strike at random, but always early on Saturday mornings. So when Dr Kay Scarpetta, chief medical officer, is awakened at 2.33 am, she knows the news is bad: there is a...
    By Patricia Cornwell
    Paperback
    $2300
    Elsewhere:
    $2499
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Dust
    The twenty-first book in the Kay Scarpetta series, from No. 1 bestselling author Patricia Cornwell. 'America's most chilling writer of crime fiction' The Times After working on one of the worst mass killings in US history, Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta returns home to recover, but an unsettling call drives her straight back to work. The body of a young...
    By Patricia Cornwell
    Paperback
    $2300
    Elsewhere:
    $2499
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Chaos
    Fear is a force of nature. No. 1 New York Times bestselling author Patricia Cornwell delivers the twenty-fourth engrossing thriller in her high-stakes series starring medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta. In the quiet of twilight, on an early autumn day, twenty-six-year-old Elisa Vandersteel is killed while riding her bicycle along the Charles River. It appears she was struck by lightning...
    By Patricia Cornwell
    Paperback
    $2500
    Elsewhere:
    $2699
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Pre-order
    Rapid and Fatal
    The New York Times bestselling Kay Scarpetta series is now an original series on Amazon Prime! To stop a diabolical series of mysterious murders, Dr. Kay Scarpetta must hunt for a killer who leaves no trace, in the newest thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Patricia Cornwell. A billionaire couple, founders of an elite security firm, are found...
    By Patricia Cornwell
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3999
    Pre-order
    Out 2 Feb 2027
  • Sharp Force
    Sharp Force
    AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! From #1 New York Times bestselling author Patricia Cornwell, a serial killer wreaks havoc on Northern Virginia, appearing as a ghostly apparition before striking—and Scarpetta must avoid becoming their next victim. Scarpetta is soon to be a streaming series starring Nicole Kidman and Jamie Lee Curtis! No one is safe from the serial killer—not...
    By Patricia Cornwell
    Paperback
    $7700
    Available
    Ships in 2-3 weeks

More from Crime & Thriller

View all
  • New Release
    King’s Ransom
    Five innocent hostages. Five private investigators. A fiendish ransom game. Has Detective Sam Speedman met his match? A fast and deadly Matthew Reilly thriller. A DARING ABDUCTION The richest man in the world has been kidnapped. Along with four of his children. THE DEADLY CHALLENGE The kidnapper's demand: the five best private detectives in America must come to the missing...
    By Matthew Reilly
    Paperback
    $2999
    Elsewhere:
    $3499
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • New Release
    The French Illusion
    Bestselling author John Grisham delivers a new gripping, suspenseful page-turner about aParis honeymoon gone horribly wrong - and the nightmare that follows. After Paul and Chelsea Tanner's fairytale wedding, their future is full of promise. But their honeymoon to Paris takes a dark, shocking turn when they are kidnapped while on a day trip to the French countryside. Who would...
    By John Grisham
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • King’s Ransom
    New Release
    King’s Ransom
    Five innocent hostages. Five private investigators. A fiendish ransom game. Has Detective Sam Speedman met his match? A fast and deadly Matthew Reilly thriller. A DARING ABDUCTION The richest man in the world has been kidnapped. Along with four of his children. THE DEADLY CHALLENGE The kidnapper's demand: the five best private detectives in America must come to the missing...
    By Matthew Reilly
    Hardback
    $4499
    Elsewhere:
    $4999
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • New Release
    The Heights
    In The Heights by #1 Sunday Times bestselling author Sir Ian Rankin, murder comes to London's most exclusive high-rise - and every resident is a suspect... MURDER COMES TO LONDON'S MOST LUXURIOUS HIGH-RISE: AND EVERY RESIDENT IS A SUSPECT. The Heights: a gleaming, high-end high-rise looming over Hyde Park. Newly built from steel and smoked glass, it is a billionaire's playground offering sumptuous suites...
    By Ian Rankin
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • New Release
    Death Row
    With all hope of an appeal fading away, the fate of a condemned murderess takes a shocking turn in a breathtaking short story from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Housemaid! A thrilling novella from #1 New York Times bestselling author Freida McFadden! Death is coming for her… unless she finds the truth first. Talia Kemper is on death row for murdering...
    By Freida McFadden
    Paperback
    $2299
    Elsewhere:
    $2400
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Signed Copy
    New Release
    Dying Days
    Award-winning writer delivers a pulse-pounding espionage thriller. Missing soldiers, MI6 secrets and European partisans collide in a deadly game where the lines between lies and reality are fast disintegrating. In the dying days of the Second World War, a new conflict is about to ignite. May, 1945: After fighting to liberate Europe from the Nazis, Tito's Yugoslav Army and Allied...
    By Anthony Byrt
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3699
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • New Release
    Fury In Death: An Eve Dallas thriller (In Death 63)
    In the new crime thriller from the bestselling author, Lt. Eve Dallas journeys into the darkness where murder is born… NYSPD homicide detective Eve Dallas has seen a lot in her time but even she is shocked by the savagery of a beating which leaves a wealthy biotech executive dead in his home office. The victim’s corpse is so mangled...
    By J. D. Robb
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • New Release
    Tom Clancy Pressure Depth
    Jack Ryan Jr leads a team of divers in a race to beat the Chinese Navy to a weapon of terrible destructive power in the latest entry in the #1 New York Times bestselling series. Jack Ryan Jr. is on Guam to work on a project for Hendley Associates. It's a perfectly ordinary insurance matter, but trouble finds the Ryans...
    By Jack Stewart
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • The Country Road Murders
    New Release
    The Country Road Murders
    From the Sunday Times bestselling author comes a pulse-pounding thriller about justice, vengeance and the roads that lead us home. No one gets this big without amazing natural storytelling talent - which is what Jim has, in spades — LEE CHILD Cross Rivers is the kind of small town where everyone knows your name – and your secrets. Silas Tucker...
    By James Patterson
    Paperback
    $3000
    Elsewhere:
    $3800
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • New Release
    Every Lake
    Scary stories are fun... until your life becomes one. When Alice was fifteen, her father killed Mia Heywood in their lakefront cottage before vanishing into the trees. At least that's what the locals think happened. Over a decade later, Alice has lost her job as a journalist, she's going through an expensive divorce and she desperately needs to sell the...
    By Adam Perry
    Paperback
    $3299
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    (2)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Nautilus
    New Release
    Nautilus
    The follow-up to the bestselling novel The Turing Protocol. Nautilus is a machine with the astonishing power to send messages eight weeks back in time. Its users must follow a set of protocols established by its inventor, Alan Turing, including that it can only be used by a descendant of his family, and only to avert global disasters. But what...
    By Nick Croydon
    Paperback
    $2999
    Elsewhere:
    $3699
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Cold River
    New Release
    Cold River
    The sensational new novel from the author of the bestselling thriller, The Creeper, winner of the Ned Kelly Award for Best Crime Fiction 2025. Deep in the mountains, secrets grow deadly... Detective Constable Sally White knows how easily hikers can go missing in Victoria's high country. But there's something about the disappearance of Louis Taylor, a young man lost up...
    By Margaret Hickey
    Paperback
    $3000
    Elsewhere:
    $3800
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow

Why buy from us?

Book Hero is not a chain store or big box retailer. We're an independent 100% NZ-owned business on a mission to help more Kiwis rediscover a love of books and reading!

Service & Delivery

Service & Delivery

Our warehouse in Auckland holds over 100,000 books, toys, board games and puzzles in-stock so you're not waiting for your order to arrive from overseas.

Auckland Bookstore

Auckland Bookstore

We're primarily an online store, but for your convenience you can pick up your order for free from our bookstore, which is right next door to our warehouse in Hobsonville.

Our Gifting Service

Our Gifting Service

Books make wonderful thoughtful gifts and we're here to help with gift-wrapping and cards. We can even send your gift directly to your loved one.

Crime & Thriller lists from the team

Explore our curated lists from our heroes to find your next read!

The Latest at Book Hero

View all