Scarpetta Season 1 Is Based On The Books Postmortem & Autopsy

Nicole Kidman and Jamie Lee Curtis play sisters in Scarpetta, a new Prime Video series that’s steeped in crime-thriller history.

The show (streaming now) is based on Patricia Cornwell’s novels about the titular Kay Scarpetta, whose work as a forensic pathologist spans more than three decades of forensic mysteries. But unlike most book-to-screen adaptations, the first season of Scarpetta doesn’t just pull inspiration from one book. So vast is Cornwell’s oeuvre that two of her works are adapted in Season 1: Postmortem (the first book) and Autopsy (the 25th!).

Curtis, who also serves as executive producer, likened the unconventional format to “wine pairings” in an interview with Entertainment Weekly — sharing her plan to employ a similar structure in future seasons.

“These are pairings of crime books that are going to tell a similar story that we can tell over two different time periods,” she said. “You have mirror crime stories and mirror family stories, all intertwining effortlessly, and I think that’s also what sets it apart from other shows.”

Just in time for Scarpetta Season 1, here’s a quick summary of both Postmortem and Autopsy.

Right Under Their Nose

In Postmortem, Scarpetta — recently appointed Virginia’s chief medical examiner — investigates the deaths of multiple women who were strangled in the Richmond area.

Working with FBI profiler Benton Wesley and a detective, Pete Marino, Scarpetta discovers that the killer left behind a sweaty, maple syrup-esque odor. She teams up with crime reporter Abby Turnbull to leak information about the killer potentially having a metabolic condition, hoping that it will rattle him.

And it does, to dangerous effect. Just after making the connection that each of the victims had previously called 911 — suggesting that the killer selected them based on their voices — Scarpetta is attacked at her home by the killer, Roy McCorkle, who is indeed a 911 dispatcher. But before he can kill her, Marino, who’s been watching Scarpetta’s house in fear for her safety, rushes in and shoots McCorkle dead.

Murder In Outer Space

Autopsy picks up decades later, as Scarpetta returns to her post after working in Massachusetts. Now married to Wesley — and in-laws with Marino, who married Scarpetta’s sister, Dorothy — the forensic pathologist investigates another apparent serial killer, this time in Alexandria.

After a woman, Gwen Hainey, is found dead by a railroad track, Scarpetta learns that she was operating as an industry spy at a local lab. One of the lab’s projects, a top-secret orbiter, is attacked in space. Two of its astronauts are killed, while a third escapes back to Earth. After Scarpetta performs a virtual autopsy on the slain astronauts, she discovers that the “survivor” is actually the killer. He was in cahoots with Gwen and acted brashly once he realized she’d been killed back home.

But as it turns out, Gwen’s death had nothing to do with her espionage. Rather, Scarpetta learns that she was killed by the same person who murdered another woman, Cammie Ramada, who ran on the same trail as Gwen. The killer is a construction worker named Boone Cotton, who actually worked at Scarpetta’s house. In the final pages of Autopsy, he ambushes her in her basement — but is bludgeoned to death by Scarpetta’s niece, Lucy.