Andy Brazil

In this first title of a new mystery series, Cornwell introduces us to a dynamic trio of crime solvers in Charlotte, North Carolina: Andy Brazil, an eager young reporter; Judy Hammer, the city's police chief; and Virginia West, Hammer's deputy and a genuine head turner. They're after a serial killer who pulls male out-of-towners from their rental cars and then mutilates, spray paints, and shoots them, in that order. What the trio uncovers jolts them like the sting of the hornet - Charlotte's symbol.

Deputy Chief Virginia West likes her boss. But when a number of visiting businessmen are murdered in her city by a maniac with a penchant for painting his victims bright orange, she objects to his edict that a rookie reporter accompany her on patrol.

Patricia Cornwell has a sixth sense about the men and women in blue. In Hornet's Nest, her page-turning novel about crime and police in Charlotte, North Carolina, Cornwell moved behind the badges of these real-life heroes to uncover flesh-and-blood characters who strode through her pages to reveal vulnerable, passionate, brave, sometimes doubting, always fascinating figures.

Richmond, Virginia, is a city rich in Southern history yet overrun by such modern-day problems as drug trafficking and escalating juvenile crime. Former Charlotte police chief Judy Hammer is brought in to clean up the police force--the most difficult assignment of her career. Now, in the face of overwhelming public scrutiny, she must navigate through local politics and prejudices to solve a brutal murder that springs straight from the rotting core of Richmond's heart.

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 island of Tangier, fourteen miles off the coast of Virginia in Chesapeake Bay, responds by declaring war on its own state.

Newly installed superintendent of the Virginia State Police, Judy Hammer, and her right hand and confidant, Andy Brazil, are at their wits' end trying to protect the public from the politicians - and vice versa. And amid the mayhem, an island off the coast of Virginia declares UDI, claiming its independence lies in the history of America's first settlers - those who set sail from London's Isle of Dogs in 1607.