Three individuals--forty-two-year-old Deputy Chief Virginia West, Police Chief Judy Hammer, and twenty-two-year-old journalist Andy Brazil--search for a serial killer, exploring the seedy underbelly of Charlotte, North Carolina, while trudging through their own personal struggles, from unhappy marriages to obsessions with their jobs.

"In Southern Cross, Cornwell takes us close to the sometimes zany (but always threatening) experiences of big-city police, in a story of corruption, scandal, and robberies that escalate to murder. The setting is Richmond, Virginia, where former Charlotte police chief Judy Hammer has been brought, by an NIJ grant, to clean up the police force. Reeling from the recent death of her husband, and resented by the Richmond police force, city manager, and...

Patricia Cornwell’s novels of big-city police have taken this classic genre to a new level. Now, with this #1 New York Times bestselling novel, she outdoes herself, with a wry tale of life and turmoil behind the blue wall.
Chaos breaks loose when the governor of Virginia orders that speed traps be painted on all streets and highways, and warns that speeders will be caught by monitoring aircraft flying overhead. But the eccentric...