Body of Evidence

Jenna Blake investigates mysterious murders at Somerset University which are the work of a killer known as the Thief of Hearts.

Two people burst into flames, burned alive in front of plenty of eyewitnesses with no obvious cause. Spontaneous human combustion is a bizarre phenomenon, but according to published accounts, it happens. Could that be what occurred here? Or is it murder?

"The first day at college, my professor dropped dead. The second day, I assisted at his autopsy. Let's hope I don't have to go through four years of this . . ." When Jenna Blake starts her freshman year at Somerset University, she's not only living on her own for the first time, she's moving closer to the father she never really knew. It's an exciting time, filled with new faces and new challenges, not to mention parties and boys and . . . corpses? Jenna is torn about her future. She'd like to be a doctor like her mother, but she can't stand the sight of blood. Her father, a criminology professor, thinks he has the answer -- and sends her to interview for a job with the Medical Examiner -- an interview that takes place in the middle of an autopsy! When a congressional aide goes violently insane, and then drops dead, the pathology team at Somerset Medical Center discover that his brain was ravaged with disease -- and loaded with insect larvae. When Jenna takes on her new job, she is drawn into a web of terrifying disease, dangerous politics, and intriguing mystery. And when one of her professors ends up dead, she starts making connections even the police haven't seen . . . which will bring her face to face with a pair of killers, one medical, and one all too human.

Forensic thriller starring Jenna Blake, student researcher, eighth in the series When Jenna and Yoshiko hit Florida for a little fun in the sun during spring break, they confront a series of suspicious deaths, each of which involve a person with some kind of mutation.