Dr. Alexandra Blake Series

When a John Doe with a bayonet wound in his chest is discovered in a Washington, D.C., Dumpster, geneticist Dr. Alexandra Blake of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology is pulled away from her bioterrorism work to aid in the investigation. Just a little digging reveals a corpse that’s not at all that of a homeless robbery victim it was set up to resemble—and Alex and her colleagues find themselves wrapped up in a complicated mystery of high-stakes international financial intrigue.

The homicide investigation is just heating up when a political firestorm erupts over the AFIP’s possession of human skulls brought back from Vietnam thirty years earlier by American servicemen. Alex is handed the delicate task of managing the restoration and return of these grisly souvenirs. Even the President of the United States has become involved, with the actual exchange scheduled to take place at a White House ceremony. Alex knows it’s an important job—and the skulls take on much more urgent significance when she uncovers evidence of a much bigger crime. Suddenly Alex herself is a target and the White House is under fire.

THE SILENT ASSASSIN is a tour-de-force thriller combining the intricate details of forensic science with the dark side of Washington politics and one of the freshest and most original characters in crime fiction today.

Dr. Alexandra Blake has the job of a lifetime. As a cutting-edge geneticist at AFIP—the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington, D.C.—Alex is charged with using her research into the genetics of viruses to find a vaccine against bioterrorism. But the institute’s new director, James Wiatt, wants to turn the AFIP into a mini FBI by directing its resources toward crime solving—an effort to rival the Bureau’s forensic department. When a series of related murders falls under his jurisdiction, he gets his chance to prove the AFIP can compete with the Bureau.

Alex is forced to put her research on hold so she can cover forensics on the case, which involves a killer who murders women near military bases across the country and then tattoos their corpses. At first she resents being distracted from her lab work, but as she becomes immersed in the case, Alex resolves to catch the killer. She knows it’s only a matter of time before he leaves some evidence for Alex to trace back to him. But when another murder strikes closer to home for Alex and her colleagues—and her boyfriend, a congressman from Texas—it will take more than forensic science to keep them safe.

With its spellbinding mix of suspense, forensics, and romance, Lori Andrews’s debut novel signals the arrival of a powerful new writer on the crime fiction shelf.