Larger	Point of Origin (Kay Scarpetta) Author: Patricia Cornwell
	Book Information Publisher: Putnam Pub Group (T) Book Type: Hardcover Rating: 148 ISBN-13: 9780399143946 - ISBN-10: 0399143947 Publication Date: 7/6/1998 Pages: 272 Book Reviews

Kay Scarpetta, to those unfamiliar with Cornwell's most complex and intriguing character, is the Chief Medical Examiner for the state of Virginia. Operating out of Richmond, Scarpetta receives an extremely threatening letter from a disturbed woman named Carrie Grethen. Readers familiar with Scarpetta's previous dealings in Cornwell novels will recognize Carrie from THE BODY FARM. Carrie Grethen is currently in a psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane. In her letter, she indicates that both Kay Scarpetta and possibly her niece Lucy are somehow bound up in one of Carrie's twisted schemes. To recap for Scarpetta newcomers, Lucy was Carrie's lover before Carrie's true psychopathic nature reared its ugly head. Kay ended up killing Carrie's partner-in-crime, Temple Gault, and not a night goes by that she doesn't relive that moment. Carrie may be incarcerated, but she has managed to touch Scarpetta's life in a creepy way, and Carrie's threatening letter only adds to herdistress,arriving right before Kay and her lover Benton Wesley are due to go off for their first vacation together in more than a year. Benton knows it spells trouble, but Kay ignores the implication of the letter.

Just before she's about to take off with Wesley to Hilton Head, Kay is called in on an emergency case. Up north, in Warrenton, Virginia, a horse farm has just burned to the ground. Racehorses worth millions died in the blaze, and the media mogul Kenneth Sparke also may have perished in the fire. But when Kay arrives, joined by Lucy, there is more at the scene of the crime than dead animals. Someone was burned, fully clothed, in the shower of the rich man's house. A young woman, glass seared into her flesh, is the only human corpse recovered.

But as the story progresses, other surprises are in store for Kay. Kenneth Sparke is alive and well, apparently having no knowledge of why anyone would destroy his ranch, although he suspects it was a racially motivated attack. After the arson investigation is under way, Kay hears the news that Carrie has escaped from the psychiatric hospital. Kay's first concern is for her lover. She reaches Wesley by phone on Hilton Head Island, worried that Carrie will try to hunt him down there because of his involvement in bringing her to justice. As the plot twists tighter and tighter, terrifying and shattering secrets are revealed, and Kay finds herself on the trail of a truly nightmarish psychopathic killer.