Cause of Death is the seventh book in the series involving Dr. Kay Scarpetta, the chief Medical Examiner for Richmond, Va. It places the good doctor in Sandbridge, Va., in a hovel between the Navy’s Inactive Ship Yard and the Back Bay Wildlife Refuge. She is called to investigate the untimely death of a healthy adult male. Could it be accidental, for the victim was using very old scuba equipment? Or could it be murder, and if so who would want to kill him? More importantly, what did he know? The victim, Ted Eddings, an aggressive investigative reporter is found suspended thirty feet below the Elizabeth River’s icy surface and illegally tangled in the moorings of a submarine grounded in the Navy’s Inactive Ship yard. Scarpetta must done a dry suit and descend to the crime scene, before she will allow him to be transported to her office. She is treated with contempt by the local boy’s club involving the sheriff’s department and the supervisors at the ship yard.