In her best-selling novel HORNET’S NEST, Patricia Cornwell displayed her intuitive understanding of policemen and women and introduced her readers to Judy Hammer, Virginia West and Andy Brazil. In this fast-moving sequel she again portrays this trio——sometimes passionate, vulnerable or heroic, always professional.

This time the setting is Richmond, Virginia, and Patricia Cornwell takes us even closer to the personal and public lives of a big city police force where corruption, scandal and robberies escalate into murder. Police Chief Judy Hammer has been hired to clean up the crime rate. Reeling from the recent death of her husband, and resented by her staff and the city’s establishment, she is joined by West and Brazil on the most difficult assignment of her career. In the face of overwhelming public scrutiny the trio must bring order and sanity to a city in trouble.

The roller-coaster new novel from one of the world’s best read story-tellers is fast, funny and fantastically entertaining; a mélange of personal conumdrums, police procedures, high drama, low life——topped off with an intoxicating dash of comedy.